Gastric Cancer

Rising prescription drug prices continue to add to the burden of paying for quality healthcare. In an effort to confront such costs, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has rescinded a prohibition on step therapy for Medicare Advantage plans. But some contend such a policy will reduce patient access to optimal medication.

General Cancer

According to findings from the phase III KEYNOTE-061 study, second-line treatment with pembrolizumab (Keytruda) did not significantly improve overall survival or progression-free survival compared with paclitaxel in patients with advanced or metastatic gastric or gastroesophageal junction cancer with a PD-L1 combined positive score ≥1.

In findings from the phase III TAGS study reported at the 2018 World Gastrointestinal Cancer Congress, TAS-102 (trifluridine/tipiracil; Lonsurf) was found to be an effective treatment option for patients with heavily pretreated metastatic or advanced gastric cancer, providing a 31% reduction in the risk of death compared with placebo.

Things are looking up in the world of adjuvant therapy for patients with gastrointestinal cancers, according to Diane Reidy-Lagunes, MD. During her presentation, Reidy-Lagunes outlined the current state-of-the-art in GI cancer care, with findings from pivotal studies in gastric, pancreatic, biliary, and colorectal cancers.

Maria Svensson, MD, Lund University, discusses the importance of biomarkers in the field of gastric cancers. In a recent study, she used evidence of mismatch repair to determine prognosis of the patients.

According to the results of a study presented during the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting, microsatellite instability-high tumors are more likely to be associated with the presence of Lynch syndrome.