Gastrointestinal Cancer

Tanios Bekaii-Saab, MD, discusses the results of a phase II study of the oncolytic virus reolysin in the first-line treatment metastatic adenocarcinoma of the pancreas.

All patients with metastatic colorectal cancer should undergo RAS mutation testing to ensure optimal patient selection for EGFR inhibitor therapy.

In patients with advanced gastric cancer expressing PD-L1, pembrolizumab (Keytruda) has robust antitumor activity and an acceptable safety profile

Dovitinib, an investigational oral tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI), demonstrated a "manageable" safety profile while controlling disease in about half of patients with advanced gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST) who had discontinued treatment with imatinib due to disease progression or intolerance

Niraj Mehta, MD, Radiation Oncologist, 21st Century Oncology, discusses the reliability of automated segmentation for lung volumes in breast, lung, and esophageal cancers.

High pretreatment levels of serum VEGF-A and TGF-β1 indicated significantly worse disease-free survival (DFS) following neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy in patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma.

The combination of chemotherapy and stereotactic ablative radiotherapy (SABR) may allow patients with locally advanced pancreatic cancer to undergo surgery, a procedure that might not have otherwise been an option

Radiotherapy is equally as effective in the palliation of dysphagia (difficulty swallowing) as chemoradiotherapy for patients with advanced esophageal cancer

Alan P. Venook, MD, professor, Department of Medicine (Hematology/Oncology), University of California, San Francisco, discusses the future of colorectal cancer treatment.

The combination of ramucirumab and FOLFIRI significantly improved OS and PFS compared with chemotherapy alone as a second-line treatment for patients with mCRC.

This article reviews up-to-date clinical studies combining chemotherapy with immunotherapy; it also explains the rationale for this combination in treatment of pancreatic cancer.

Gastric cancer is comprised of 4 distinct molecular subtypes of disease, each representing a unique opportunity for new drug development, according to a paper published in Nature by The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA).

The FDA has assigned a priority review designation to lanreotide (Somatuline Depot) as a treatment for patients with gastroenteropancreatic (GEP) neuroendocrine tumors (NETs)

Hendrik-Tobias Arkenau, MD, PhD, medical director, Sarah Canon Research Institute, discusses an exploratory analysis of AZD4547 in patients with advanced tumors.

This review highlights that preclinical data and discusses several ongoing clinical trials that are leveraging this information to explore new therapeutic strategies in targeting BRAF-mutated colorectal cancer.

Marc Peeters, MD, PhD, department of oncology, Antwerp University Hospital, Antwerpen, Belgium, discusses the efficacy and safety of panitumumab versus cetuximab as seen in the ASPECCT trial in colorectal cancer (CRC).

Alan P. Venook, MD, professor, Department of Medicine (Hematology/Oncology), University of California, San Francisco, discusses implications from the CALGB/SWOG 80405 trial of targeted therapies administered in colorectal cancer.

The FDA has approved the noninvasive stool-based DNA test Cologuard for the detection of colorectal cancer or cancer precursors in asymptomatic patients at average risk.

Margaret A. Tempero, MD, director, Pancreas Center, University of California, San Francisco, discusses screening tools used for patients at high risk for pancreatic cancer.

There is a tension in the air these days when it comes to the manner in which evidence-based oncology research should be conducted in this revolutionary era, and that tension is evident on the pages of peer-reviewed articles describing novel findings in clinical molecular oncology, in editorials discussing these studies, and in commentaries related to future approaches to discovery.