ASCO 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%.