Gastrointestinal Cancer

Eileen M. O’Reilly, MD, associate director for Clinical Research, David M. Rubenstein Center for Pancreatic Cancer Research at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses factors that patients and oncologists should consider when developing a treatment plan for pancreatic cancer.

Daniel Sargent, PhD, professor of Oncology and Biostatistics, Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, discusses the IDEA initiative, which is an international study to examine if patients with colon cancer would benefit from reducing the duration of adjuvant therapy from 3 months to 6 months to reduce side effects and cost.

Adding MM-398 (irinotecan liposome injection; nal-IRI; Onivyde) to 5-fluorouracil and leucovorin had no negative effect on quality of life while significantly improving overall survival in patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer.

John L. Marshall, MD, chief, Division Of Hematology/Oncology, Georgetown University Hospital Associate Director, clinical research, Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center at Georgetown University Hospital, discusses the difference between squamous and adenocarcinoma in esophageal and gastric cancer.

Combined inhibition of the PD-L1/PD-1 axis with atezolizumab (Tecentriq) and the MEK pathway with cobimetinib (Cotellic) showed promising clinical activity and a good safety profile in heavily pretreated patients with microsatellite stable metastatic colorectal cancer.

The FDA has granted an orphan drug designation to the STAT3 targeted agent napabucasin as a treatment for patients with gastric and gastroesophageal junction cancer.

Second-line treatment with regorafenib (Stivarga) improved overall survival by 2.8 months compared with placebo for patients with unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma who progressed on sorafenib (Nexavar).

Kanwal Raghav, MBBS, MD, assistant professor, Department of Gastrointestinal Medical Oncology, Division of Cancer Medicine, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses a study examining HER2 gene amplification in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer.

Michael J. Overman, MD, discusses the findings of the phase II CheckMate-142 study, which examined nivolumab (Opdivo) and ipilimumab (Yervoy) in patients with high microsatellite instability colorectal cancer.

Patients with nonfunctioning neuroendocrine tumors of lung or gastrointestinal origin continued to live longer when treated with the mammalian target of rapamycin inhibitor everolimus (Afinitor) than with placebo.

The United States Preventative Services Task Force recommends screening for colorectal cancer using traditional colonoscopy or one of 7 tests at various frequencies for all patients aged 50 to 75.

Michael J. Overman, MD, associate professor, Department of Gastrointestinal Medical Oncology, Division of Cancer Medicine, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses a study examining nivolumab (Opdivo) monotherapy, ipilimumab (Yervoy) monotherapy, and the combination of nivolumab and ipilimumab in patients with high microsatellite instability metastatic colorectal cancer.

In patients with advanced colorectal cancer, the combination regimen of cobimetinib (Cotellic) and atezolizumab (Tecentriq) was found to demonstrate clinical activity as well as have a good safety profile.

Results of an analysis presented at the 2016 ASCO Annual Meeting demonstrate the difficulty in determining the prevalence of germline cancer susceptibility gene mutations in patients with colorectal cancer (CRC) who do not harbor Lynch syndrome.

A device using tumor treating fields that was administered to patients with unresectable pancreatic cancer showed early signs of tolerability and safety when in combination with gemcitabine in the frontline setting.

IMAB362 reduced the risk of death or progression by approximately 50% when added to standard chemotherapy for patients with CLDN18.2-positive advanced gastric cancers.

Nivolumab (Opdivo) as a monotherapy and in combination with ipilimumab (Yervoy) demonstrated promising antitumor activity in patients with high microsatellite instability (MSI-H) metastatic colorectal cancer.

The addition of capecitabine to standard adjuvant gemcitabine doubled 5-year overall survival (OS) rates for patients with pancreatic cancer whose tumors were surgically removed.

The European Commission has approved everolimus (Afinitor) for use as treatment for patients with progressive, unresectable or metastatic, well-differentiated nonfunctional gastrointestinal or lung neuroendocrine tumors.

Tanios Bekaii-Saab, MD, discusses the use of both regorafenib and TAS-102, as well as the potential role immunotherapy could have within colorectal cancer.

Precancerous colon polyps exhibit many of the same driver mutations that fuel the development of colorectal cancer.

The majority of patients with pancreatic adenocarcinoma are diagnosed with late-stage, unresectable tumors, a setting in which combination chemotherapy remains the mainstay.

Manish A. Shah, MD, associate professor of Medicine, Joan and Sanford I. Weill Department of Medicine, Bartlett Family Associate Professor in Gastrointestinal Oncology, medical oncologist, Weill Cornell Medicine and New-York Presbyterian Hospital, discusses the phase IIIb HELOISE trial, which compared 2 dose regimens of trastuzumab combined with chemotherapy as a first-line treatment for patients with HER2-positive metastatic gastric/gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma (mGC/GEJC).

Survival outcomes in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer were significantly longer among those with tumors originating on the left versus the right side of the colon, according to a retrospective analysis of the phase III 80405 trial.