Dr. Jain on the Push Toward Personalized Treatment Approaches in CRC With Liver Metastases

Shikha Jain, MD, FACP, assistant professor of medicine, director of communication strategies in medicine, University of Illinois (UI) College of Medicine, associate director of oncology communication and digital innovation, UI Cancer Center, medical oncologist, Department of Hematology and Oncology, UI Health, discusses the push toward personalized treatment approaches in colorectal cancer (CRC) with liver metastases.

Emerging data from clinical trials have demonstrated the utility of neoadjuvant chemotherapy for patients with CRC and liver metastases, Jain says. Additionally, surgical and oncological advances with conversion therapy that has the goal of converting a non-operative candidate to an operative one have been made, Jain adds.

These advances allowed treatment for this patient population to become personalized to the individual’s overall liver function, performance status, and tumor biology. Moreover, this shifted the field away from a one-size-fits-all approach in which all patients with more than 1 liver lesion received systemic therapy only. Now, stratified patients may be eligible for surgery plus systemic therapy to improve their overall survival, Jain concludes.