Colorectal Cancer

Matthew B. Yurgelun, MD, discusses a colorectal cancer study which found nearly 10% of the individuals had an inherited mutation in a cancer susceptibility gene.

Molecular testing of patients with colorectal cancer should be incorporated into standard practice to establish the mutations each patient has that would affect their response to treatment with EGFR-targeted therapies.

John L. Marshall, MD, discusses efforts to determine the underlying molecular basis for the sidedness issue in colorectal cancer.

A Continuum of Care for Metastatic CRC

Manish A. Shah, MD, discusses the HERACLES clinical trial, which explored treatment with trastuzumab (Herceptin) and lapatinib (Tykerb) in patients with HER2-amplified metastatic colorectal cancer.

The PD-1 inhibitor nivolumab showed single-agent activity in previously treated patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the anal canal, resulting in an overall response rate of 24.3%.

Manish Shah, MD, discusses ongoing efforts to understand the distinction between early-onset CRC and traditional CRC.

The combination of trastuzumab (Herceptin) and lapatinib (Tykerb) resulted in a 30% objective response rate (ORR) in heavily pretreated patients with HER2-positive metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC), suggesting a new targeted therapy strategy for later lines of treatment that supports testing for the aberration.

Treatment Options for Metastatic CRC

The impact of the recent findings regarding tumor sidedness in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer are potentially practice-changing, with data demonstrating that patients with right-sided tumors have a poorer prognosis than those with left-sided tumors. In addition, sidedness could be clinically relevant as a predictive biomarker of response to standard frontline treatments.

Brian Hemphill, MD, provides insight on some of the challenges currently being faced in GI malignancies—specifically, colorectal cancer, pancreatic cancer, and gastic cancer—and how molecular profiles of tumors will dramatically change outcomes for these patients.

Michael J. Overman, MD, medical oncologist, Department of Gastrointestinal Medical Oncology, Division of Cancer Medicine, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses updated results from the CheckMate-142 trial, which investigated nivolumab alone or in combination with ipilimumab in patients with DNA mismatch repair deficient/microsatellite instability high metastatic colorectal cancer. 

Arturo Loaiza-Bonilla, MD,&nbsp;the potential role of <em>BRAF</em> and <em>CTNNB1</em> mutations in the survival difference between CRC patients with left- and right-sided tumors.