ASCO Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium

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.

An orally administered first-in-class cancer stemness inhibitor, BBI608, administered twice daily with weekly paclitaxel has promising activity in patients with refractory, heavily pretreated metastatic pancreatic cancer; particularly in patients who are taxane naive.

Nivolumab (Opdivo) produced an overall response rate (ORR) of 14% with an acceptable safety profile in patients with gastric or gastroesophageal junction (GEJ) cancer, according to data from the phase I/II CheckMate-032 trial.

Pembrolizumab (Keytruda), a PD-1 inhibitor, showcased encouraging activity with some adverse events (AEs) when employed as a treatment for patients with advanced PD-L1

Cathy Eng, MD, FACP, medical oncologist, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses the combination of bevacizumab with FOLFOXIRI (irinotecan, oxaliplatin, fluorouracil, and folinate) as a treatment for patients with metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC).

Preoperative treatment with short-course radiation therapy plus 3 cycles of chemotherapy boosted overall survival (OS) and generated fewer adverse events (AEs) compared to standard chemoradiation for patients with locally advanced rectal cancer.

Patients with either gastrointestinal (GI) neuroendocrine tumors (NETs) or NETs of unknown primary origin experienced a 40% or more decrease in their risk of disease progression when treated with everolimus (Afinitor), according to a subanalysis of the phase III RADIANT-4 trial.

Patients with advanced midgut neuroendocrine tumors (NETs) will continue to see major therapeutic benefits from the peptide receptor radionuclide therapy Lu-Dotatate (Lutathera), including an improvement in overall survival and the reduction of progression or death risk by 79%.