Brian M. Wolpin, MD, on Performance of a Blood-Based Test for the Detection of Multiple Cancers
2020 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium
Brian M. Wolpin, MD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, discusses a noninvasive blood test evaluating methylation of circulating free DNA. In his study, the blood test detected multiple gastrointestinal cancers at a sensitivity of approximately 81% and a prespecified specificity of > 99%. It also accurately localized the tissue of origin across more than 20 cancer types (Abstract 283).
Van K. Morris, MD, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses the COBRA study, which is examining circulating tumor DNA and its ability to predict whether patients with resected stage IIA colon cancer may benefit from adjuvant chemotherapy (Abstract TPS261).
Scott Kopetz, MD, PhD, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses phase III findings from the BEACON CRC trial, which had demonstrated that the triplet regimen of encorafenib, cetuximab, and binimetinib significantly improved overall survival in patients with a BRAF V600E mutation. The new analysis showed that the regimen also led to substantial improvement in patient-reported quality of life compared with current standard of care (Abstract 8).
Danielle S. Bitterman, MD, of the Harvard University Radiation Oncology Program and Massachusetts General Hospital, discusses an analysis of genomic and clinical data from 97 patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma with circulating tumor DNA. Mutations were most frequently detected in patients with locally advanced and metastatic disease (Abstract 753).
Eileen M. O’Reilly, MD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses phase II trial findings showing that cisplatin and gemcitabine, with or without veliparib, exceeded a prespecified response rate for patients with pancreatic adenocarcinoma and a germline BRCA/PALB2 mutation (Abstract 639).
Thomas Yau, MBBS, of the University of Hong Kong, discusses this triplet combination, which yielded better responses than doublet combination therapy in patients with advanced liver cancer, but with more severe adverse events and more treatment discontinuations (Abstract 478).
