A survey of prevalence of colorectal chemotherapy side effects

The aim of this study was to give an overlook to the variety of chemotherapy regimens prescribed for colorectal adenocarcinoma and their side effects. Colorectal carcinoma is one of the mostly common cancers in our region and most experiences of physicians are based on non-native studies. To our knowledge this is the first such a study, although including a limited group of patients for reviewing the treatment. We selected a group of 109 patients having colon and rectum cancer undergoing chemotherapy with different regimens during the study period, that were referred and treated consecutively. Some of the side effects of treatments were followed-up and registered prospectively. After 468 courses of chemotherapy and recording the side effects during the first six courses of treatment, 55 cases (11.6%) had grade 3 or 4 of complications. The most prevalent regimen was FOLFOX4 (37.6%) and then CapeOX (26.9%). The most common major complication was neutropenia (5.3%) and then gastrointestinal complications including nausea (1.5%) and diarrhea (1.3%). In this study none of the factors of gender, age, ethnicity, performance status, the stage of disease, the tumor location and the kind of chemotherapy regimens had statistically significant effect on severity of the side effects.