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Copyright ©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastrointest Oncol. Sep 15, 2016; 8(9): 642-655
Published online Sep 15, 2016. doi: 10.4251/wjgo.v8.i9.642
Role of targeted therapy in metastatic colorectal cancer
Yoshihito Ohhara, Naoki Fukuda, Satoshi Takeuchi, Rio Honma, Yasushi Shimizu, Ichiro Kinoshita, Hirotoshi Dosaka-Akita
Yoshihito Ohhara, Naoki Fukuda, Satoshi Takeuchi, Rio Honma, Yasushi Shimizu, Ichiro Kinoshita, Hirotoshi Dosaka-Akita, Department of Medical Oncology, Hokkaido University Graduate School of Medicine, Sapporo, Hokkaido 060-8638, Japan
Author contributions: Ohhara Y and Fukuda N wrote the manuscript; Takeuchi S, Honma R, Shimizu Y, Kinoshita I and Dosaka-Akita H contributed critical revision of the manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: No conflict of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Yoshihito Ohhara, MD, Department of Medical Oncology, Hokkaido University Graduate School of Medicine, North 15, West 7, Kita-ku, Sapporo, Hokkaido 060-8638, Japan. yoshihito-ohhara@kkr-smc.com
Telephone: +81-11-7065551 Fax: +81-11-7065077
Received: March 25, 2016
Peer-review started: March 26, 2016
First decision: June 6, 2016
Revised: June 21, 2016
Accepted: July 20, 2016
Article in press: July 22, 2016
Published online: September 15, 2016
Processing time: 170 Days and 19.4 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: The development of molecular targeted agents contributes to prolonging survival of patients with metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC). One anti-vascular endothelial growth factor agent, bevacizumab, and two anti-epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) agents, cetuximab and panitumumab, have demonstrated clinical benefits in first-line, second-line, or salvage therapy in combination with cytotoxic chemotherapy. Moreover, RAS mutation has been proven to be a negative biomarker for anti-EGFR therapy in recent retrospective analyses. This article summarizes the evidence from large clinical trials and highlights the benefit of the molecular targeted agents in patients with mCRC.