Gastrointestinal Cancers (Issue 2)

A head-to-head comparison of cetuximab and bevacizumab showed equivalence for chemotherapy plus either agent in terms of OS, PFS, and response rates for patients with certain previously untreated mCRC.

Tanios Bekaii-Saab, MD, Section Chief, Gastrointestinal Oncology, associate professor, Internal Medicine, Pharmacology, The Ohio State University, discusses an analysis of two targeted drugs for the treatment of patients with colorectal cancer (CRC).

Johanna Bendell, MD, director of GI Cancer Research Program, associate director, Drug Development Program, Sarah Cannon Research Institute, discusses the importance of testing CRC patients for BRAF status.

Unfortunately, regorafenib has been associated with certain adverse events (AEs), such as hand-foot skin reaction (HFSR) and hypertension.

Significantly extended overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) was seen with oral nucleoside TAS-102 treatment in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) refractory to standard therapies.

Palliative care involving initial treatment with surgical resection of the primary tumor followed by systemic treatment yielded a 4.7-month OS benefit in patients with mCRC compared with the same treatments administered in the reverse order.

Paulo Marcelo Hoff, MD, PhD, FACP, University of São Paulo, Brazil, discusses predicting outcomes with first-line antiangiogenics plus chemotherapy in metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC).