A recent clinical trial published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology revealed that giving chemotherapy before surgery for early-stage bowel cancer reduces the risk of the disease returning by 28%. Experts said that every year, hundreds of thousands of patients could benefit from the discovery.

The Cancer Research UK-funded FOxTROT trial, which the universities of Birmingham and Leeds coordinated, included 1,053 patients at 85 hospitals in the UK, Denmark, and Sweden.

The first group of patients in the trial received six weeks of chemotherapy, then underwent surgery, and then received eighteen weeks of chemotherapy. The second group received standard care for bowel cancer, also called colon cancer, which consisted of surgery followed by 24 weeks of chemotherapy.

It was observed that the group who received chemotherapy before surgery had a significantly lower risk of recurrence. According to scientists, the new strategy might be used by the NHS and other nations worldwide.

Experts stated that timing is "important”, when it comes to treating colon cancer. They claimed that moving up the timing of chemotherapy and delivering it before rather than following surgery produces significantly better results. If this therapy could be scaled up globally, even in low- and middle-income nations, millions of lives could be saved.

(Source: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/jan/19/new-treatment-strategy-cuts-risk-of-bowel-cancer-returning-by-28)