Gastrointestinal Cancer

Jimmy Hwang, MD, discusses the frontline indications for checkpoint inhibitors in gastric cancer and their effect on subsequent treatment decisions, the growth of targeted therapy across gastrointestinal cancers, and expectations for future research and development.

Therapeutic breakthroughs for patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer have eluded investigators for decades, with chemotherapeutic combination strategies serving as the insurmountable standard of care.

Merck has announced plans to withdraw the accelerated approval indication for pembrolizumab in the treatment of select patients with recurrent locally advanced or metastatic gastric or gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma whose tumors express a PD-L1 combined positive score of 1 or more, and who have progressed on or after 2 or more previous lines of therapy, including fluoropyrimidine- and platinum-containing chemotherapy, and HER2-/neu-targeted therapy, if appropriate.

The incidental identification of pancreatic cysts has become more common with the increasing use of imaging modalities in clinical practice.

The novel PI3Kß inhibitor GSK2636771 plus paclitaxel led to encouraging clinical activity as well as a tolerable safety profile in patients with PTEN-deficient advanced gastric cancer who progressed following frontline chemotherapy.

The optimal sequence of therapies in the second- or later-line settings for patients with hepatocellular carcinoma remains unclear.

Single-agent pemigatinib is being compared with gemcitabine plus cisplatin in patients with unresectable and/or metastatic cholangiocarcinoma whose tumor harbor FGFR2 fusions or rearrangements in the ongoing, phase 3 FIGHT-302 trial.

Jimmy Hwang, MD, discusses considerations for second-line treatment in gastric/gastroesophageal junction cancer.

Lenvatinib can continue to be administered in patients with unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma that has Child-Pugh class B liver function, as they experienced a similar tumor size reduction as their Child-Pugh class A counterparts in a post-hoc analysis of the phase 3 REFLECT trial.

Frontline pembrolizumab plus lenvatinib, and chemotherapy is being tested against chemotherapy alone in patients with advanced gastroesophageal adenocarcinoma, as part of the international, 2-part, phase 3 LEAP-015 trial.

The FDA has accepted the filing of the new drug application for surufatinib as a potential therapeutic option for patients with pancreatic and extra-pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors.

Lenvatinib demonstrated superiority to sorafenib in the first-line setting for patients with unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma, according to results of a propensity score matching analysis.

The debate continues as to how to define oligometastatic disease and whether it represents a unique stage between limited-stage and widely metastatic disease.

Rondell Graham, MBBS, discusses utilizing biomarkers to guide treatment for patients with intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma.

The European Commission has approved the combination of nivolumab plus ipilimumab for use in adult patients with mismatch repair deficient or microsatellite instability–high metastatic colorectal cancer following previous fluoropyrimidine-based combination chemotherapy.

The European Commission has approved pembrolizumab plus platinum- and fluoropyrimidine-based chemotherapy for the frontline treatment of patients with locally advanced unresectable or metastatic carcinoma of the esophagus or HER2-negative gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma whose tumors have PD-L1 expression.

The combination of cabozantinib and atezolizumab was found to significantly improve progression-free survival compared with sorafenib when used in the first-line treatment of patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma, meeting a primary end point of the phase 3 COSMIC-312 trial.

Modified fluorouracil, oxaliplatin, and irinotecan elicited encouraging responses and an acceptable toxicity profile as a frontline treatment for patients with unresectable gallbladder cancer

The European Medicines Agency’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use has recommended the approval of nivolumab for the adjuvant treatment of adult patients with esophageal or gastroesophageal junction cancer who have residual pathologic disease after previous neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy.

The addition of sintilimab to chemotherapy significantly improved overall survival over chemotherapy alone when used as a first-line treatment in patients with unresectable, locally advanced, recurrent, or metastatic esophageal squamous cell carcinoma, meeting the primary end point of the phase 3 ORIENT-15 trial.

Alison Schram, MD, discusses the results of the phase 1/2 eNRGy trial, which were presented during the 2021 ASCO Annual Meeting, in NRG1 fusion–positive solid tumors.

Ghassan K. Abou-Alfa, MD, reports on data presented at the 2021 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting regarding final results from the ClarIDHy trial. In the phase 3 study, investigators examined ivosidenib vs placebo in patients with previously treated cholangiocarcinoma and an isocitrate dehydrogenase 1 mutation.

Bassam Sonbol, MD, discusses the role of pembrolizumab in the treatment of patients with gastric cancer.

Daniel H. Ahn, DO, shares how to navigate among the therapeutic options available for patients with advanced, unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma.

Daniel H. Ahn, DO, discusses considerations for treatment with atezolizumab and bevacizumab in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma.