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Colorectal Cancer Treatments and Studies / Colorectal Cancer Surgical Treatments / Gastric Cancer Management and Outcomes · Journal article
Journal of Clinical Medicine · August 13, 2026
Early or partial results. Treat as a signal, not a conclusion.
This retrospective observational study of 94 mCRC patients found a median OS difference of 6.8 months favoring maintenance therapy (24.8 vs 18.0 months, p=0.045), but this association was not independent in multivariable analysis. The univariable survival difference appears driven by baseline patient differences rather than the maintenance strategy itself.
Single-center retrospective observational cohort study. Metastatic colorectal cancer patients with disease control after first-line bevacizumab-based combination chemotherapy; median age 62 years, 61.7% male.. Intervention: Maintenance therapy with fluoropyrimidine ± bevacizumab.. Compared with: Active surveillance (no maintenance therapy after first-line bevacizumab-based chemotherapy).. n = 94. Single center (location not specified in source text)..
Median OS: 24.8 months with maintenance therapy vs. 18.0 months with active surveillance (p = 0.045) Median PFS: 11.3 months with maintenance vs. 6.7 months with surveillance (p = 0.077, not statistically significant) Maintenance therapy was not independently associated with OS or PFS in multivariable analysis
Safety was not reported in the material analysed. Check the source before drawing any conclusion about harm.
Clinicians should not use this study to guide maintenance therapy decisions in mCRC, as the observed OS benefit was not maintained after adjustment for baseline characteristics. The finding suggests confounding by indication rather than a true treatment effect, requiring prospective randomized evidence to establish causality.
Single-center retrospective observational study with modest sample size, confounding by indication, and loss of statistical significance after multivariable adjustment, suggesting baseline differences rather than a true treatment effect.
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Quoted from the source exactly as published.
Clinicians should not use this study to guide maintenance therapy decisions in mCRC, as the observed OS benefit was not maintained after adjustment for baseline characteristics. The finding suggests confounding by indication rather than a true treatment effect, requiring prospective randomized evidence to establish causality.
Graded across the dimensions that decide whether you should act, each from what the source actually supports. There is no single score, and where a dimension was not assessed it says so.
Objectives: This study evaluated the association between maintenance therapy and survival outcomes following first-line bevacizumab-based combination chemotherapy in metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) using real-world data. Methods: This retrospective study included 94 mCRC patients achieving disease control, defined as complete response (CR), partial response (PR), or stable disease (SD), after first-line bevacizumab-based chemotherapy (2015–2025). Patients were divided into maintenance (fluoropyrimidine ± bevacizumab, n = 44) and active surveillance (n = 50) groups. Progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) were analyzed using a landmark approach, Kaplan–Meier methods, and Cox regression models. Results: The overall patient cohort (n = 94) had a median age of 62 years and a male predominance of 61.7%. Median OS was significantly longer with maintenance therapy than surveillance (24.8 vs. 18.0 months; p = 0.045); PFS differences were not statistically significant (11.3 vs. 6.7 months; p = 0.077). In multivariable analysis, maintenance was not independently associated with OS or PFS. Male sex, comorbidities, multiple metastases, and non-resected primary tumors independently predicted worse OS. No statistically significant treatment-by-subgroup interactions were identified in the exploratory analyses. Conclusions: These real-world data suggest a potential survival advantage associated with maintenance therapy following first-line bevacizumab-based combination chemotherapy in patients with mCRC who achieve disease control. However, this association was not maintained after multivariable adjustment, suggesting that baseline differences may have contributed to the observed findings. Trial Registration: This retrospective observational study was not prospectively registered.
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