Heinz-Josef Lenz, MD, of USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center, discusses how treating microsatellite instability–high/DNA mismatch repair–deficient metastatic colorectal cancer with nivolumab once every 2 weeks plus low-dose ipilimumab every 6 weeks may represent a new option for patients (Abstract 11).
Franck Pagès, MD, PhD, of the Hôpital Européen Georges Pompidou, discusses study findings from the prospective IDEA France cohort study of patients with stage III colon cancer treated with mFOLFOX6. The study showed that patients with an intermediate or high Immunoscore seemed to benefit from 6 months of mFOLFOX6 treatment compared with 3 months (Abstract 10).
Thibaud Kössler, MD, PhD, of Geneva University Hospital, discusses the first trial to study the efficacy and safety of anti–PD-1 immunotherapy plus short-course radiotherapy in localized microsatellite-stable rectal cancer. The study explores whether a gene signature can predict sensitivity to immunotherapy (Abstract TPS272).
Eyal Meiri, MD, of the Cancer Treatment Centers of America at Southeastern Regional Medical Center, discusses his findings on heavily pretreated patients with colorectal cancer with high tumor mutational burden. Monotherapy with pembrolizumab showed antitumor activity, which merits further study to confirm efficacy (Abstract 133).
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).
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).
