Geoffrey Y. Ku, MD, medical oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses combinations and sequencing of treatments for patients with gastric and esophageal cancers.

Patients getting the treatment in the third-line setting is too late, explains Ku. There are 10 other phase III studies that are evaluating treatment in the first- and second-line setting.

Another area of improvement is biomarker selection. Up until this point, the main biomarker has been PD-L1 expression on the tumor cells; however, it’s not perfect, Ku states. When PD-L1 is used as a biomarker, PD-L1—positive tumors respond approximately 25% of the time, whereas PD-L1–negative tumors respond 10% of the time.