Recommendations

Adjuvant chemotherapy is not recommended for routine use in patients with stage II colon cancer. However, in certain situations, it may be reasonable for you and your doctor to consider adjuvant chemotherapy. This recommendation is based on the results of clinical trials, which show that patients who receive adjuvant chemotherapy have about a 4% to 5% greater chance of survival at five years after surgery, compared with patients who did not receive adjuvant chemotherapy. (The exact benefit is not known with certainty because not enough stage II patients have been included in clinical trials.)

In other words, patients who receive chemotherapy after surgery have a very small chance of reducing the risk of their cancer coming back compared with patients who do not receive the extra treatment. Given the potential risks of chemotherapy, patients should talk to their doctors about whether this small benefit is worth the risk of extra treatment.