Afsaneh Barzi, MD, PhD, on Disparities in Access to Screening and Treatment of GI Cancers
2021 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium
Afsaneh Barzi, MD, PhD, of the City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center and the University of Southern California, discusses reasons for the incomplete understanding of the molecular landscape of minority patients with cancer, lack of screening chief among them. This underrepresentation, Dr. Barzi says, is more marked in gastrointestinal malignancies than other solid tumors, and she recommends ways to improve the outlook.
The ASCO Post Staff
Richard S. Finn, MD, of the UCLA Medical Center, discusses updated results from the IMbrave 150 study, which showed atezolizumab plus bevacizumab provides the longest overall survival seen in a front-line phase III study in advanced hepatocellular carcinoma, confirming this combination as the standard of care for patients with previously untreated, unresectable disease (Abstract 267).
The ASCO Post Staff
Kai-Keen Shiu, MD, PhD, of the University College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust - London, discusses an interim analysis of PFS 2 results (defined as time from random assignment to progression on the next line of therapy or death) from the phase III KEYNOTE-177 trial. This study has already shown that first-line pembrolizumab provides a clinically meaningful and statistically significant improvement in PFS compared with chemotherapy in patients with microsatellite instability–high metastatic colorectal cancer (Abstract 6).
The ASCO Post Staff
Tenna V. Henriksen, PhD Candidate, of Aarhus University, discusses her findings on how circulating tumor DNA may help assess recurrence risk and the benefit of adjuvant therapy, and more quickly detect early relapse after treatment in patients with colorectal cancer (Abstract 11).
The ASCO Post Staff
Talia Golan, MD, of the Oncology Institute, Sheba Medical Center, discusses phase III results from the POLO trial, which explored the question of whether maintenance olaparib could improve overall and progression-free survival for patients with germline BRCA-mutated metastatic pancreatic cancer (Abstract 378).
The ASCO Post Staff
Rocio Garcia-Carbonero, MD, of Hospital Universitario 12 De Octubre, discusses results of the phase II/III AXINET trial, which showed that axitinib plus long-acting release octreotide improved overall response compared with placebo and octreotide in patients with advanced grade 1 or 2 extrapancreatic neuroendocrine tumors. However, no significant improvement in progression-free survival was observed (Abstract 360).
