GI CANCERS

According to results from the CALGB 8903 study published in the <em>Journal of Clinical Oncology, </em>there is an association between total nut intake and improved outcomes in patients with stage III colon cancer. Results of the study showed patients who ate at least 2 servings of nuts per week had superior disease-free survival and overall survival.

The FDA has granted a fast track designation to pamrevlumab for the treatment of patients with locally advanced, unresectable pancreatic cancer, according to FibroGen, the manufacturer of the first-in-class anti-CTGF antibody.

According to findings from the phase III REFLECT trial now published online in the <em>Lancet,</em>^&nbsp;lenvatinib improved progression-free survival and was noninferior for overall survival compared with sorafenib for the frontline treatment of patients with&nbsp;unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma.

Hackensack Meridian <em>Health</em> John Theurer Cancer Center at Hackensack University Medical Center has appointed Louis M. Weiner, MD, to its advisory board. Weiner is the director of the Georgetown Lombardi Cancer Center and director of the MedStar Georgetown Cancer Institute.

Michael A. Morse, MD, discusses a number of key trials that have broadened the treatment landscape of mCRC, the importance of toxicity management in this setting, and other ongoing developments in GI cancers.

Thomas Karasic, MD, investigator at Penn Medicine, discusses a phase II trial of palbociclib (Ibrance) in patients with advanced&nbsp;<br /> esophageal or gastric cancer.<br /> &nbsp;

Updated findings of the CheckMate-142 study presented by Michael J. Overman, MD, at the 2018 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium&nbsp;continued to support the use of nivolumab alone or in combination with ipilimumab for previously treated patients with DNA mismatch repair-deficient/microsatellite instability-high metastatic colorectal cancer.

NYU Langone Health&rsquo;s Perlmutter Cancer Center has announced that Paul E. Oberstein, MD, a nationally renowned clinician-scientist, will serve as director of Gastrointestinal (GI) Medical Oncology and assistant director of its recently established Pancreatic Cancer Center.

Maria Svensson, MD, Lund University, discusses associations of PD-1 and PD-L1 expression with mismatch repair status and prognosis in chemoradiotherapy-na&iuml;ve esophageal and gastric adenocarcinoma.<br /> &nbsp;

Tanios Bekaii-Saab, MD, professor of medicine, Mayo Clinic, discusses a randomized phase II trial to evaluate dosing strategies for regorafenib (Stivarga) in patients with refractory metastatic colorectal cancer.

Based on results of the phase III NETTER-1 trial, Lutathera has been approved by the FDA for the treatment of patients with somatostatin receptor-positive gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumors.

Michael Pishvaian, MD, PhD, director, Phase I Clinical Program, co-director of the Ruesch Center Pancreatic Cancer Program Medical Oncology, Otto J. Ruesch Center for the Cure of Gastrointestinal Cancer, Georgetown University Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, discusses the results of a study investigating entrectinib in patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer who harbor <em>NTRK</em> and <em>ROS1</em> fusions.

In phase II data reported at the&nbsp;2018 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium, treatment with the PD-1 inhibitor pembrolizumab (Keytruda) elicited promising progression-free survival and overall survival results&nbsp;in patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma who received previous treatment with sorafenib.

According to findings presented at the 2018 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium,&nbsp;the combination of the&nbsp;VEGFR-2 inhibitor ramucirumab (Cyramza) plus the anti&ndash;PD-L1 agent durvalumab (Imfinzi)&nbsp;demonstrated antitumor activity in a phase Ia/b study of patients with previously treated advanced gastric or gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma.

According to results reported at the 2018 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium, early&nbsp;signs of efficacy were seen with the&nbsp;investigational oral cancer stem cell pathway inhibitor napabucasin (BBI608) combined with the PD-1 inhibitor pembrolizumab (Keytruda) in the first 8 patients enrolled in a multicenter phase I/II trial of patients with metastatic colorectal cancer.

Superior overall survival was induced with sequencing regorafenib (Stivarga) before cetuximab (Erbitux) compared with the reverse sequence in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer following failure of standard chemotherapy, according to findings from the phase II&nbsp;REVERCE study presented at the 2018 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium.

According to 2 analyses presented at the 2018 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium, data from the CheckMate-142 study support the use of nivolumab (Opdivo) alone or in combination with ipilimumab (Yervoy) for the treatment of&nbsp;patients with previously treated DNA mismatch repair-deficient/microsatellite instability-high metastatic colorectal cancer.

According to findings reported during the 2018 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium, a weekly dose-escalation&nbsp;strategy of regorafenib (Stivarga) beginning at 80 mg and ending at 160 mg was found to be superior than the previously standard starting dose of 160 mg in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer.

According to findings from the phase III&nbsp;CELESTIAL trial released ahead of the&nbsp;2018 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium,&nbsp;cabozantinib (Cabometyx) improved median overall survival by 2.2 months compared with placebo&nbsp;for patients with previously treated advanced hepatocellular carcinoma.

In patients with newly diagnosed locally advanced pancreatic cancer, induction treatment with nab-paclitaxel (Abraxane) plus gemcitabine induced an overall disease control rate of 77.6%, according to&nbsp;updated findings from the phase II LAPACT trial presented at the 2018 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium.

Madappa Kundranda, MD, PhD, recently discussed the cases of 2 patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), and the treatment considerations and decisions he would make when treating these patients. Dr. Kundranda, Director of Gastrointestinal Oncology at Banner MD Anderson Cancer Center, Phoenix discussed these cases during a <em>Targeted Oncology</em>&nbsp;live case-based peer perspectives dinner.

A novel circulating tumor cell assay has demonstrated a high accuracy of up to 88% for detecting early-stage colorectal cancer, according to the results of a prospective study from Taiwan released ahead of a presentation at the 2018 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium in San Francisco, California. The study marks the first to show a high sensitivity for detecting precancerous lesions, as prior studies tended to identify later-stage CRCs.

In results from the&nbsp;phase III CROSS trial reported in the <em>Journal of Clinical Oncology,&nbsp;</em>neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy failed to lower postoperative health-related quality of life compared with surgery alone for patients with&nbsp;esophageal or junctional cancer.<br /> &nbsp;

Jesper B. Andersen, MSc, PhD, discusses a study that shows&nbsp;using a single-gene dissection approach in patients with intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma can characterize divergent cancer programs and drug vulnerabilities.

Cathy Eng, MD, FACP, professor, Department of Gastrointestinal Medical Oncology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses ongoing clinical trials in the <em>BRAF</em>-mutant colorectal cancer patient population.