Kai-Keen Shiu, MD, PhD, on Colorectal Cancer: Pembrolizumab vs Chemotherapy for Microsatellite Instability–High Disease
2021 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium
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
Milind M. Javle, MD, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses phase II study results showing that the novel tyrosine kinase inhibitor infigratinib may prove to be effective in treating patients with advanced cholangiocarcinoma harboring an FGFR2 gene fusion or rearrangement (Abstract 265).
The ASCO Post Staff
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
Zev A. Wainberg, MD, of UCLA Medical Center, discusses phase II results from the FIGHT study, which combined bemarituzumab with modified FOLFOX6 in first-line treatment of advanced gastric/gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma. This is reportedly the first randomized trial of any FGFR inhibitor, validating this target in gastric cancer (Abstract 160).
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
Romain Cohen, MD, PhD, of the Mayo Clinic and Sorbonne University, discusses a post-hoc analysis of phase III results from the CALGB/SWOG 80702 study, which showed that adding the number of tumor deposits, a negative prognostic factor, to the count of lymph node metastases may improve the accuracy of TNM staging (Abstract 10).