[Advances in new chemotherapeutic drugs for preoperative chemoradiation of locally advanced rectal cancer].

Preoperative concurrent chemoradiotherapy based on 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) is an standard treatment mode for patients with locally advanced rectal cancer (LARC). Currently, more and more interests has now focused on new chemotherapeutic drugs, such as capecitabine, oxaliplatin, irinotecan, bevacizumab, and cetuximab in this treatment mode. Many prospective phase I-III clinical trials have been developed to explore these new drugs efficacy in the neoadjuvant chemoradiation (nCRT) for patients with LARC. Some results are very encouraging, yet others are undesirable. Capecitabine has been widely recognized in the nCRT for patients with LARC, and has the tendency to replace 5-FU. However, there are some controversies for oxaliplatin, irinotecan, and biologically targeted drugs in the nCRT mode because of their limited clinical benefits. It is potentially the development direction to study the mutual interaction mechanism among concurrent drugs or radiation and biologically targeted drugs, find new predicatively responsive targets, and screen the appropriate patient in the treatment of neoCRT for patients with LARC in the future.