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In a Korean phase III noninferiority trial (KCSG CO09-07) reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Kim et al found noninferiority in disease-free survival and reduced risk of neuropathy for adjuvant therapy with 3 vs 6 months of oxaliplatin plus 6 months of fluoropyrimidine treatment in...
The invited discussant of the CAIRO5 presentation at the 2022 ASCO Annual Meeting was Cathy Eng, MD, FACP, FASCO, Professor of Medicine, Hematology, and Oncology at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, Nashville. Dr. Eng explained the key questions being asked by the investigators. “If you have a...
In the phase III CAIRO5 study, conducted by the Dutch Colorectal Cancer Group, triplet vs doublet chemotherapy plus bevacizumab significantly increased progression-free survival, response rate, and the rate of R0/R1 resections, with and without ablation, in patients with initially unresectable...
The use of postoperative circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) in stage II colon cancer spared many patients the need for adjuvant chemotherapy without compromising recurrence-free survival, according to the phase II DYNAMIC study.1 “The strategy of using ctDNA results to inform treatment almost halved...
In patients with RAS/BRAF wild-type metastatic colorectal cancer, FOLFIRI (fluorouracil, leucovorin, irinotecan) plus panitumumab can be given intermittently rather than continuously, without compromising outcomes, according to the results of the IMPROVE study presented at the 2022 ASCO Annual...
In a retrospective cohort study reported in JAMA, Schottinger et al found that patients treated by physicians with higher adenoma detection rates on colonoscopies negative for cancer had a lower risk of postcolonoscopy colorectal cancer and death from colorectal cancer. Study Details The study...
The invited discussant of PARADIGM, Chiara Cremolini, MD, PhD, Professor of Medical Oncology at the University of Pisa, Italy, said the findings prospectively confirm the superior benefit of FOLFOX (fluorouracil, leucovorin, oxaliplatin) paired with panitumumab rather than bevacizumab in RAS...
The preferred targeted therapy for left-sided RAS wild-type metastatic colorectal cancer, in combination with standard chemotherapy, is panitumumab, not bevacizumab, based on a head-to-head comparison in the phase III PARADIGM trial. Panitumumab plus chemotherapy yielded the longest overall...
In 2020, nearly 150,000 Americans, mostly those aged 50 and older, were diagnosed with colorectal cancer. However, about 18,000 of those individuals were younger than age 50. And while colorectal cancer rates have decreased for people over age 50, they have been increasing by 51% since 1994 for...
Investigators at the American Cancer Society presented results of several studies during poster sessions at the 2022 ASCO Annual Meeting. Summaries of a few of these studies are provided here. COVID-19 and Cancer Mortality According to a new study led by researchers at the American Cancer Society,...
The study’s invited discussant was Kimmie Ng, MD, MPH, Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Co-Director of the Colon and Rectal Cancer Center at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston. “Neoadjuvant dostarlimab-gxly for 6 months represents a promising new treatment for...
In a study of 18 patients with locally advanced mismatch repair–deficient (dMMR) rectal cancer, 6 months of neoadjuvant treatment with the anti–PD-1 agent dostarlimab-gxly alone led to clinical complete responses in 100% of the study’s first 14 patients.1 These results were presented at the 2022...
In the phase III ANCHOR study reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Palefsky et al found that treatment of high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesions was successful in preventing anal cancer vs active monitoring in persons infected with HIV. Study Details In the multicenter trial, 4,446 ...
In a study reported in JAMA Network Open, Shen et al found that data from both phase III trials and the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database indicate significant improvements in overall survival for patients with metastatic colorectal cancer over a 30-year period. Increases...
Michael J. Overman, MD, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, and Smitha Krishnamurthi, MD, of the Cleveland Clinic, review three abstracts, all of which enrolled patients with newly diagnosed RAS and BRAF wild-type metastatic colorectal cancer with left-sided primary tumors. The discussion centers on what the study results indicate about the use of an EGFR therapy and weighing the risk to quality of life from rash, in particular (Abstracts LBA3503, LBA3504, LBA3505).
In an Italian phase II trial (AtezoTRIBE) reported in The Lancet Oncology, Antoniotti et al found that the addition of atezolizumab to FOLFOXIRI (fluorouracil, leucovorin, oxaliplatin, irinotecan) and bevacizumab improved progression-free survival in the first-line treatment of patients with...
Michael J. Overman, MD, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, and Jeanne Tie, MBChB, MD, of Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, discuss results from the DYNAMIC trial, in which a circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA)-guided approach reduced the use of adjuvant chemotherapy without compromising recurrence-free survival in patients with stage II colon cancer (Abstract LBA100).
In an Italian phase III trial (TRIPLETE) presented at the 2022 ASCO Annual Meeting (Abstract LBA3505) and simultaneously published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Rossini et al found that mFOLFOXIRI (modified fluorouracil, leucovorin, oxaliplatin, and irinotecan) plus panitumumab did not...
Rarely, if ever, has one abstract presented at the ASCO Annual Meeting warranted its own session—but that happened with a small but mighty study from Memorial Sloan Kettering. In a study of patients with locally advanced mismatch repair–deficient (dMMR) rectal cancer, 6 months of treatment with the ...
The use of panitumumab plus mFOLFOX6 significantly improved overall survival in patients with RAS wild-type metastatic colorectal cancer that was classified as left-sided compared with patients who received mFOLFOX6 plus bevacizumab, according to findings presented during the Plenary Session by...
In a large national study, Black patients diagnosed with early-onset colorectal cancer received worse and less timely care than their White counterparts. Differences in health insurance coverage type, a modifiable factor, according to the findings, accounted for the largest identified contributor...
In patients with stage II colon cancer where cancer DNA was not present in the blood (as circulating tumor DNA, or ctDNA), adjuvant chemotherapy could be skipped without compromising recurrence-free survival. Conversely, for patients where ctDNA was present after surgery, the rate of recurrence...
Colonoscopies performed with computer-aided detection, or artificial intelligence (AI), saw an increase in the overall rate of detection of adenoma, or cancerous and precancerous polyps, by 27% in average-risk patients, according to new data presented by Shaukat et al at Digestive Disease Week 2022 ...
The 5-year survival for younger adults with colorectal cancer improved for White patients alone between 1992 and 2013, according to a new analysis presented by Zaki et al at Digestive Disease Week 2022 (Abstract 895). However, no survival gains were found for Black, Hispanic, or Asian patients with ...
In a population-based study conducted in nine European countries for which data on mode of detection were available (Belgium, Denmark, England, France, Italy, Ireland, the Netherlands, Slovenia, and Spain), the proportion of colorectal cancer cases detected by screening varied widely between...
Smitha S. Krishnamurthi, MD, of the Cleveland Clinic Taussig Cancer Institute, discusses prognostic assays for localized colon cancer, the potential clinical uses and current limitations of prognostic assays for stage II to III disease, and checkpoint inhibitor therapy for metastatic colorectal cancer.
Recent research underlines the importance of following up with a colonoscopy exam after a positive result on an at-home stool test to screen for colorectal cancer. The test, known as the fecal immunochemical test (FIT), checks for traces of blood in patient-collected stool samples, which can be an...
In a study reported in JAMA Oncology, Ma et al found that the initiation of lower gastrointestinal endoscopy screening in women younger than age 50 was associated with a reduced risk of colorectal cancer vs no screening, and a greater absolute risk reduction compared with screening starting at age...
In a phase II trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Garcia-Aguilar et al found that total neoadjuvant therapy followed by a watch-and-wait strategy vs total mesorectal excision based on response allowed for organ preservation in approximately half of patients with rectal...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Yoshino et al, the final analysis of survival and safety of the Japanese phase III ACHIEVE trial (part of the IDEA Collaboration) has shown no difference in disease-free or overall survival with 3 vs 6 months of adjuvant mFOLFOX6 (fluorouracil,...
In a retrospective cohort study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Lord et al found that high-risk patients with rectal cancer treated with surgery alone who were more likely to benefit from preoperative radiotherapy were better selected using proven magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) prognostic...
In an analysis from the ASCO Quality Oncology Practice Initiative (QOPI) reported in JCO Oncology Practice, Chen et al found that a high proportion of patients with rectal cancer do not receive guideline-recommended pretreatment staging transrectal ultrasound or pelvic magnetic resonance imaging...
As reported in The Lancet Oncology by Diaz et al, the final overall survival analysis of the phase III KEYNOTE-177 trial did not show a significant improvement with pembrolizumab vs chemotherapy in patients with newly diagnosed microsatellite instability–high or mismatch repair–deficient metastatic ...
Artificial intelligence (AI) reduced the rate at which precancerous polyps were missed in colorectal cancer screening by twofold, reported a team of international researchers in a study published by Wallace et al in Gastroenterology. Between February 2020 and May 2021, 230 study participants were...
The National Comprehensive Cancer Network® (NCCN®) Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology: Colorectal Cancer Screening have recently incorporated significant changes, reflecting recommendations that will spare some patients unnecessary interventions and, in other cases, detect cancer earlier. The ...
Two presentations given at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting 2022 focused on promising strategies for making breakthrough immunotherapies work for more patients. Both studies report findings from clinical trials that advance a novel immunotherapy platform in...
Maria Elena Martinez, PhD, MPH, of the University of California, San Diego Moores Cancer Center, provides an overview of the key components of the Accelerating Colorectal Cancer Screening and Follow-up through Implementation Science program, challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, and opportunities for overcoming these challenges. Although screening and follow-up may reduce the incidence of and mortality from colorectal cancer, these disparities persist in medically underserved populations (Abstract SY30).
Reid M. Ness, MD, MPH, of Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, discusses significant updates to the NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology for colorectal cancer screening: lowering the age from 50 to 45 for the initiation of average-risk screening for all combinations of race, ethnicity, and sex; and extending the surveillance interval from 5 to 7–10 years following the identification of one to two low-risk adenomas.
Tumor budding is an emerging prognostic biomarker in colon cancer and currently influences decision-making in patients with pT1 and stage II colon cancer. In stage III colon cancer, its prognostic impact has been limited to small and retrospective cohorts. In a post hoc analysis of the IDEA-France...
In a German study reported in JAMA Oncology, Li et al found that assessment of risk of colorectal cancer based on cumulative lifetime excess weight may be more accurate than risk indicated by single body mass index (BMI) measurements. As stated by the investigators, “Excess weight is associated...
In the Chinese phase III STELLAR trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Jin et al found that preoperative short-term radiotherapy followed by chemotherapy was not inferior in 3-year disease-free survival vs a standard schedule of long-term chemoradiotherapy in patients with locally...
For patients with stage III colon cancer, early discontinuation of adjuvant chemotherapy leads to worse outcomes—but early discontinuation of oxaliplatin did not. These findings, which came from an analysis of the large ACCENT and IDEA clinical trials databases, were presented at the 2022 ASCO...
The combination of encorafenib, cetuximab, and nivolumab produced responses in 50% of patients and disease control in 96% of patients with microsatellite-stable BRAF V600E–mutated metastatic colorectal cancer in a phase I/II trial reported at the 2022 ASCO Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium. The...
Over the past year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted approval to several novel drugs and new indications for older therapeutic agents used in gastrointestinal oncology. Cetuximab Plus Encorafenib On September 28, 2021, cetuximab (Erbitux) was approved in combination with encorafenib...
The phase II GERCOR NIPICOL study evaluated 1 year of treatment with nivolumab plus ipilimumab in patients with chemotherapy-resistant metastatic colorectal cancer whose tumors were microsatellite instability–high (MSI-H) or mismatch repair–deficient (dMMR). With this shortened treatment duration,...
In a prespecified analysis of the phase II CodeBreaK100 trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Marwan Fakih, MD, and colleagues found that the KRAS G12C protein inhibitor sotorasib showed modest activity in patients with previously treated KRAS G12C–mutant colorectal cancer.1 Study Details The...
The phase II ANCHOR CRC study, the largest prospective study of BRAF inhibitor–based therapy as first-line treatment of metastatic colorectal cancer, has met its primary endpoint, with 47.8% of patients with metastatic colorectal cancer responding to first-line treatment with encorafenib,...
As reported in The Lancet Oncology by Thierry Conroy, MD, and colleagues, the French phase III UNICANCER-PRODIGE 23 trial has shown that intensification of preoperative therapy with FOLFIRINOX (oxaliplatin, irinotecan, leucovorin, fluorouracil [5-FU]) prior to chemoradiotherapy resulted in...
In an Italian phase II study (MAYA) reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Morano et al found that patients with microsatellite-stable (MSS) and O6-methylguanine–DNA methyltransferase (MGMT)-silenced metastatic colorectal cancer without disease progression on temozolomide derived benefit...
Gabriel A. Brooks, MPH, MD, Associate Professor of Medicine, Norris Cotton Cancer Center at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, was invited to discuss the results of the ACCENT/IDEA database analysis of early treatment discontinuation in stage III colon cancer.1 Although the results confirm the...