Current Clinical Trials

The presence of inguinal nodes that are involved with metastatic disease (unilateral or bilateral) is a poor prognostic sign, though cure of this stage of disease is possible. Because of the poor prognosis associated with this stage, patients should be included in clinical trials whenever possible.

Standard treatment options:

• Radiation therapy plus chemotherapy (as described for stage II) with surgical resection of residual disease at the primary site (local resection or abdominoperineal resection) and unilateral or bilateral superficial and deep inguinal node dissection for residual or recurrent tumor.

Check for U.S. clinical trials from NCI's PDQ Cancer Clinical Trials Registry that are now accepting patients with stage IIIB anal cancer ¹. The list of clinical trials can be further narrowed by location, drug, intervention, and other criteria.

General information about clinical trials is also available from the NCI Web site ².