Pemetrexed and Erlotinib for Metastatic Colorectal Cancer
Status:
Completed
Trial end date:
2018-12-01
Target enrollment:
Participant gender:
Summary
Pemetrexed is a multitargeted antifolate, which primarily inhibits thymidylate synthase,
dihydrofolate reductase, and glycinamide ribonucleotide formyltransferase in the
folate-dependent metabolic process. Nowadays, pemetrexed is used to treat malignant pleural
mesothelioma and non-squamous non-small cell lung cancer. Preclinical and clinical studies
showed that pemetrexed had cytotoxic activity in many kinds of cancers including colorectal
cancer. Erlotinib is a tyrosine-kinase inhibitor of EGFR, which was approved for the
treatment of non-small cell lung cancer. Erlotinib also showed activity to colorectal cancer
cells. Recently, Zhang et al. demonstrated synergistic cytotoxicity of pemetrexed and
gefitinib in preclinical study.
In this multicenter, non randomized, open label phase II study, investigators aimed to
evaluate the efficacy and safety of Pemetrexed and Erlotinib combination.