Stage 3 colon cancer may have a new drug to add to the treatment lineup. Currently, the most common course of treatment for resectable Stage 3 colon cancer is surgery followed by adjuvant chemotherapy.
Recently, however, investigators at Dana-Farber Brigham Cancer Center presented a randomized clinical trial that studied patients with stage 3 colon cancer. The patients in the trial had surgical colon resection to remove the cancer. After the surgery, a blood sample was obtained to test for small pieces of DNA that come from cancerous cells and tumors, called circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA). If ctDNA is found in the blood, it indicates the presence of residual cancer.
The trial at Dana-Farber Brigham Cancer Center introduced a non-steroidal, anti-inflammatory drug, celecoxib, to the treatment regimen for patients who tested positive for ctDNA. Patients who received celecoxib along with standard adjuvant chemotherapy had improved long-term survival compared to patients who received only chemotherapy after surgical resection.
The first trial using celecoxib for colon cancer was conducted from 2010 to 2015, during which patients taking celecoxib showed some benefit. At that time, to determine if patients were to receive celecoxib, they were assessed by using imaging before and after surgery checking for clustered cancer cells. This testing approach had limited resolution. The ctDNA tests available now can provide a more sensitive result. Patients with a negative ctDNA test saw no significant difference between celecoxib versus placebo.
Article written by Stacy Schumacher, RN, BSN, CMCN, Managed Care Specialist. The following sources were used as reference material for this article:
https://www.dana-farber.org/newsroom/news-releases/2025/blood-test-could-guide-use-of-anti-inflammatory-drug-celecoxib-to-reduce-risk-of-colon-cancer-recurrence
https://medlineplus.gov/genetics/understanding/testing/circulatingtumordna/