The aim of this study was to evaluate the curative effects and safety of capecitabine plus oxaliplatin compared with 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) plus oxaliplatin in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer (MCRC). We searched the Cochrane Central register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), PubMed, Ovid, ScienceDirect, EBSCO, EMBASE and conference proceedings for eligible trials. A meta-analysis was performed using Review Manager 5.0. A total of 3,603 cancer patients from 7 trials were analyzed, and the baseline patient characteristics were comparable in all studies. Curative effect outcomes including complete response (CR) (OR=0.78; 95% CI 0.47-1.31; p=0.35), partial response (PR) (OR=0.81; 95% CI 0.65-1.00; p=0.05) and the overall response rate (ORR) (OR=0.85; 95% CI 0.71-1.02; p=0.08) showed similar curative effects between the capecitabine plus oxaliplatin group and the 5-FU plus oxaliplatin group. Moreover, the median overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) had no statistically significant differences. Regarding safety, hand-foot syndrome was more frequently observed in the capecitabine plus oxaliplatin group (OR=2.71; 95% CI 2.04-3.61; p<0.00001), while stomatitis and neutropenia were reversed. Other toxic effects had no statistically significant differences between the two groups. Our results showed that capecitabine plus oxaliplatin had similar curative effects to 5-FU plus oxaliplatin, however, it was safer in patients with MCRC.

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