ASCO Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium

Ghasson K. Abou-Alfa, MD, discusses the rapid evolution observed in the treatment landscape of hepatocellular carcinoma over the last few years.

Step counts appeared to correlate with self-reported quality of life during the first 2 weeks of treatment with SM-88 in patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer, the results of a preliminary exploratory analysis from part 2 of the phase 2/3 TYME-88-Panc trial showed.

In patients with esophageal cancer, chemotherapy with or without added pembrolizumab led to similar health-related quality of life results over 18 weeks, according to findings from the phase 3 KEYNOTE-590 study.

In the frontline setting of FGFR2b-positive advanced gastric or gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma, the combination of bemarituzumab combined with mFOLFOX6 achieved a 56% reduction in the risk of disease progression or death compared with placebo.

Andrew X. Zhu, MD, PhD, discusses the evolving treatment landscape for patients with hepatocellular carcinoma.

Neoadjuvant chemotherapy regimens were not found to increase the risk for perioperative complications in patients who have potentially resectable advanced thoracic esophageal cancer, according to data from the phase 3 JCOG 1109 trial that were virtually presented at the 2021 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium.

In multiple gastrointestinal tumor types, the combination of the anti-angiogenic multikinase inhibitor lenvatinib plus the anti-PD-1 antibody pembrolizumab demonstrated promising antitumor activity and a manageable safety profile, according to data presented at the 2021 ASCO Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium.

In a retrospective, real-world analysis of patients with unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma in the United States, investigators observed that lenvatinib alone was effective as first-line treatment.

Esophageal-specific and general quality of life was improved in patients with esophageal/gastroesophageal cancer who received nivolumab in the Checkmate 577 clinical trial, according to subgroup analysis data presented during the 2021 American Society of Clinical Oncology Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium.

The addition of pembrolizumab and trastuzumab to the combination cisplatin plus capecitabine was able to effectively treat HER2-positive advanced gastric and gastroesophageal junction cancer, regardless of PD-L1 expression in the phase 1b/2 PANTHERA trial.

Camrelizumab in combination with apatinib demonstrated encouraging clinical efficacy as a second-line treatment of patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma and demonstrated acceptable safety in a single-arm, open-label phase 2 clinical trial.

Roughly 40% of patients with advanced, progressive gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumors treated with pembrolizumab in combination with lanreotide achieved stable disease, according to results from the phase 1b/2 PLANET clinical trial presented during the 2021 American Society of Clinical Oncology Gastrointestinal Cancer Symposium.

The combination of regorafenib plus an oral fluoropyrimidine, TAS-102, as third-line treatment in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer, achieved a clinically meaningful disease control rate in the phase I dose-escalation trial REMETY, according to data presented at the 2020 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium.

Better rates of overall survival were observed in patients with intermediate-stage hepatocellular carcinoma who had an elevated baseline alpha-fetoprotein level when ramucirumab was used as second-line therapy after sorafenib compared with second-line placebo. These improvements occurred irrespective of patients' Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer stage and were based on results of a pooled analysis of the phase III REACH and REACH-2 trials

Joseph Chao, MD, discusses the importance of assessing the microsatellite instability (MSI) status in patients with advanced gastric/gastroesophageal junction cancer based on findings from a comparative analysis of KEYNOTE-059, KEYNOTE-061, and KEYNOTE-062.

Lenvatinib in combination with nivolumab demonstrated promising antitumor activity in patients with unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma with no new safety signals reported.

Frontline lenvatinib followed by an anticancer procedure resulted in prolonged overall survival in patients with unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma when compared against sorafenib, according to results of a post hoc analysis of the REFLECT trial reported at the 2020 GI Cancers Symposium.

Antitumor activity in patients with germline <em>BRCA/PALB2</em>-mutant pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma was reported with the chemotherapy doublet of gemcitabine plus cisplatin with or without the addition of veliparib,&nbsp;according to data presented at&nbsp;the 2020 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium.&nbsp;

In an interview with&nbsp;Targeted Oncology, Vincent Chung, MD, discussed the findings from the pilot trial evaluating the addition of dietary supplements to combination chemotherapy in patients with unresectable pancreatic cancer. He also highlighted the importance of these findings and the next steps necessary to evaluate the role of supplements in pancreatic cancer further.

Promising antitumor activity with durable responses were demonstrated with the combination of nivolumab and ramucirumab plus paclitaxel&nbsp;in a phase II study of patients with advanced gastric cancer, which wsa presented at the 2020 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium.&nbsp;Among patients treated with the combination, the objective response rate was 37.2%, and all responders had a partial response.

The addition of ipilimumab with the combination&nbsp;cabozantinib and nivolumab&nbsp;led to higher response rates, as well as progression-free survival and overall survival in patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma compared with the doublet combination alone, according to a presentation at the&nbsp;2020 GI Cancers Symposium, held January 23-25, in San Francisco, California.

Overall survival was meaningfully improved with treatment of pembrolizumab in first and later lines for patients with&nbsp;advanced gastric/gastroesophageal junction cancer with a high number of PD-L1&ndash;expressing cells in the tumor, lymphocytes, and macrophages compared with chemotherapy.

A subset of patients with GI cancers harboring&nbsp;<em>NTRK</em>&nbsp;gene fusions had positive responses to selective TRK inhibition with larotrectinib, confirming efficacy of the agent in this group. The results of the confirmatory trial were recently reported the 2020 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium.

In an interview with&nbsp;Targeted Oncology,&nbsp;Kaoru Tsuchiya, MD, discussed the results of the real-world study of lenvatinib in patients with unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma that are being presented at the 2020 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium.

Hirva Mamdani, MD, explains the rationale for conducting a safety and efficacy study of durvalumab in patients following multimodality therapy for locally advanced esophageal and gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma.

Manish Shah, MD, Bartlett Family Associate Professor of Medicine, director, Gastrointestinal Oncology Program, Weill Cornell Medical College, discusses doing more than just surgery for patients with locally advanced stomach cancer.

Kenneth Wang, MD, director of the Advanced Endoscopy Group and Esophageal Neoplasia Clinic, Mayo Clinic, discusses his opposition for Barrett's esophagus screening as a preventative measure for esophageal adenocarcinoma.

Mismatch repair-deficient gastrointestinal (GI) tumors are highly responsive to checkpoint blockade with anti

The latest results from an open-label, phase Ib study of the STAT3 inhibitor BBI-608 (napabucasin) with a standard chemotherapy (FOLFIRI with or without bevacizumab) in the treatment of advanced colorectal cancer, have been presented at the ASCO 2016 Gastrointestinal Symposium. Evidence of antitumor activity and a favorable safety profile were seen in phase I studies.

Avelumab, an investigational anti-PD-L1 antibody, showed clinical activity as both a second-line and maintenance therapy in patients, with unresectable gastric or gastroesophageal junction (GEJ) cancer, according to data from a phase Ib presented at the 2016 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium.