Dr. Loaiza-Bonilla on Right- Versus Left-Sided Colorectal Cancer

Arturo Loaiza-Bonilla, MD, medical oncologist, specialized in gastrointestinal malignancies, assistant professor of Clinical Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, discusses findings of patients with right- versus left-sided tumors of colorectal cancer (CRC).

Among the 250 samples from the University of Pennsylvania, there were 2 common genomic alterations that were statistically significant. The first was BRAF, which tends to have a worse prognosis compared with BRAF wild-type CRCs. The second was CTNNB1, which is a ubiquitin mutation.

Most of the phase II and III clinical trials had not included next-generation sequencing as part of the biomarker test, due to more costly technologies and uncertainty as to which biomarkers are appropriate to test, explains Loaiza-Bonilla.