ZURICH (Reuters) - Roche's cancer drug Xeloda enabled elderly patients being treated for colorectal cancer to live free of the disease for longer, the world's largest maker of cancer drugs said on Thursday.
A study showed that patients above the age of 65 or 70 years who took Xeloda, or capecitabine, with Xelox, or oxaliplatin, immediately after surgery lived disease-free for longer compared with those treated with commonly used chemotherapy regimen 5-fluorouracil/leucovorin.
In July, Roche said Xeloda, which is already approved for the treatment of early-stage colon cancer as a monotherapy, increased the time patients lived when taken with oxaliplatin, meeting its primary goal in a late-stage trial.
Colorectal cancer is the second most common cause of death from cancer in men and women in Europe, with nearly 1 million cases each year worldwide, said Roche.
Age is the biggest risk factor for the disease and more than 90 percent of cases are diagnosed in individuals over the age of 50, Roche said.
(Reporting by Katie Reid; Editing by David Cowell)
