Gastrointestinal Cancer

The FDA has granted a fast track designation to DKN-01 for the treatment of patients with gastric and gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma whose tumors have high DKK1 expression, who have progressed on or after a fluoropyrimidine- and platinum-containing chemotherapy, and HER2/neu targeted therapy, if appropriate.

Findings from clinical trials evaluating HER2-directed and immunotherapeutic approaches for treating patients with gastric cancer are among recent data attracting interest from experts in the gastrointestinal cancer field.

Ivosidenib demonstrated a consistent trend toward improved overall survival compared with placebo in treatment-naïve patients with IDH1-positive cholangiocarcinoma, although the benefit was not determined to be statistically significant.

The addition of nivolumab to chemotherapy resulted in a statistically significant improvement in progression-free survival and elicited higher overall response rates in patients with previously untreated advanced or recurrent gastric and gastroesophageal junction cancer.

Ronan J. Kelly, MD, MBA, discusses the rationale to conduct the phase 3 CheckMate-577 study in esophageal or gastroesophageal junction cancer.

First-line treatment with the combination of nivolumab and chemotherapy led to a statistically significant survival benefit among previously untreated patients with PD-L1–positive advanced gastric cancer, gastroesophageal junction cancer, and esophageal adenocarcinoma versus chemotherapy alone.

The addition of durvalumab to tremelimumab showed modest activity in patients with advanced neuroendocrine tumors of gastroenteropancreatic and lung origins.

Frontline pembrolizumab plus chemotherapy significantly improved overall survival, progression-free survival, and objective response rates compared with chemotherapy alone in patients with locally advanced unresectable or metastatic esophageal cancer.

Lenvatinib plus pembrolizumab showed early antitumor activity and tolerability in previously treated patients with advanced solid tumors.

The novel VEGFR, FGFR, and CSF-1R inhibitor surufatinib yielded a statistically significant and clinically meaningful progression-free survival benefit compared with placebo in patients with advanced pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors.

Overall survival was significantly improved in patients who received hepatic arterial infusion chemotherapy with oxaliplatin, fluorouracil, and leucovorin compared with transarterial chemoembolization.

John Zalcberg, ​PhD, OAM, discusses updated results from the phase 3 INVICTUS trial in advanced gastrointestinal stromal tumor.

The novel broad-spectrum KIT and PDGFRα inhibitor ripretinib continued to demonstrate clinically meaningful benefit as a fourth- or later-line treatment for patients with advanced gastrointestinal stromal tumors.

Improvements in disease-free survival and progression-free survival were observed in patients with progressive pancreatic or midgut neuroendocrine tumors whose frequency of dosing for lanreotide Autogel was increased from 120 mg every 28 days to every 14 days.

In an interim analysis of a subset of patients with intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma harboring FGFR2 fusions/rearrangements, futibatinib was shown to be efficacious and tolerable.

Timothy Cragin Wang, MD, discusses the advent of immunotherapy and how it has revolutionized multiple areas of cancer treatment; however, the transformative potential of the modality has been mild in the field of colorectal cancer.

Neoadjuvant nivolumab shrank tumors in 29% of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma at high risk for recurrence, which may kickstart the ablation effect of electroporation.

Allyson Ocean, ​MD, discusses the need for additional second-line therapies in metastatic pancreatic cancer. 

The safety and efficacy of ramucirumab administered after a frontline, non–sorafenib-based systemic therapy in hepatocellular carcinoma was consistent with data from the sorafenib-receiving intention-to-treat population of the phase 3 REACH-2 study.

The combination of tremelimumab and durvalumab improved overall response rate and median overall survival in patients with unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma previously treated with sorafenib.

Richard D. Kim, MD, discusses the safety profile of the combination of atezolizumab and bevacizumab in hepatocellular carcinoma.

A retrospective analysis of data from the CELESTIAL trial has demonstrated the potential role for cabozantinib in patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma and Child-Pugh B liver cirrhosis.

AVENGER 500, a pivotal phase 3 clinical trial evaluating the efficacy and safety of devimistat for patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer, has achieved its target enrollment of 500 patients.

The FDA has approved copper Cu 64 dotatate injection for the localization of somatostatin receptor–positive neuroendocrine tumors.

Rutika J. Mehta, MD, MPH, discusses the ​current treatment paradigm in HER2-positive gastric cancer.