Systematic Reviews
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2017. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Oncol. Jun 10, 2017; 8(3): 266-272
Published online Jun 10, 2017. doi: 10.5306/wjco.v8.i3.266
Recurrence-free survival as a putative surrogate for overall survival in phase III trials of curative-intent treatment of colorectal liver metastases: Systematic review
Raphael L C Araujo, Paulo Herman, Rachel P Riechelmann
Raphael L C Araujo, Department of Upper Gastrointestinal and Hepato-Pancreato-Bliliary Sugery, Barretos Cancer Hospital, Barretos, SP 14784-400, Brazil
Raphael L C Araujo, Paulo Herman, Department of Gastroenterology, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, SP 05403-900, Brazil
Rachel P Riechelmann, Instituto do Câncer do Estado de São Paulo, Universidade de São Paulo, SP 01246-000, Brazil
Author contributions: Araujo RLC and Riechelmann RP contributed to study conception and design; Araujo RLC contributed to acquisition of data; Araujo RLC and Riechelmann RP contributed to analysis and interpretation of data; all authors contributed to drafting of manuscript and critical revision.
Conflict-of-interest statement: No conflict of interest for any authors.
Data sharing statement: The statistical code, and dataset are available from the corresponding author at raphael.l.c.araujo@gmail.com.
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: Raphael LC Araujo, MD, PhD, Department of Upper Gastrointestinal and Hepato-Pancreato-Bliliary Sugery, Barretos Cancer Hospital, Rua Antenor Duarte Villela, 1331, Barretos, SP 14784-400, Brazil. raphael.araujo@hcancerbarretos.com.br
Telephone: +55-17-33216600 Fax: +55-17-33216600
Received: December 1, 2016
Peer-review started: December 5, 2016
First decision: March 28, 2017
Revised: April 12, 2017
Accepted: May 3, 2017
Article in press: May 5, 2017
Published online: June 10, 2017
Processing time: 182 Days and 20.9 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: This study addresses a systematic review of curative-intent treatment of colorectal liver metastasis looking for oncologic outcomes. We describe the association between overall survival (OS) and recurrence free survival in the setting of resectable colorectal liver metastases (CRLM). It suggests that recurrence free survival could work as a putative surrogate of OS in this population, avoiding bigger, longer and more resource-consuming trials. We do believe that our model can be useful to better estimate sample size calculations of superiority phase III trials of CRLM aiming for OS.