Melissa Amy Lumish, MD, on Rectal Cancer: PD-1 Blockade for Mismatch Repair–Deficient Disease
2022 ASCO Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium
Melissa Amy Lumish, MD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses new findings showing a 100% complete response rate to PD-1 blockade alone among the first 11 patients with locally advanced mismatch repair–deficient rectal cancer treated with this approach. None of the patients required chemoradiation or surgery, thus avoiding their attendant morbidities, and so PD-1 blockade may represent a new treatment paradigm. Follow-up on the durability of response is needed (Abstract 16).
The ASCO Post Staff
Ghassan K. Abou-Alfa, MD, MBA, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Weill Medical College at Cornell University, discusses phase III results of the HIMALAYA trial, which showed the combination of a single priming dose of tremelimumab added to durvalumab is superior to sorafenib for patients with unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma (Abstract 379).
The ASCO Post Staff
Van K. Morris, MD, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses phase I/II data suggesting that encorafenib plus cetuximab and nivolumab is safe and well tolerated for patients with microsatellite-stable BRAF V600E–mutated metastatic colorectal cancer (Abstract 12).
The ASCO Post Staff
Nilofer Saba Azad, MD, of Johns Hopkins Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center, assesses the findings from the phase III TOPAZ-1 trial, a study of durvalumab in combination with gemcitabine plus cisplatin in patients with advanced biliary tract cancer. Dr. Azad explains why the study sets a potential new standard of care of gemcitabine plus cisplatin and durvalumab in unselected patients.
The ASCO Post Staff
Romain Cohen, MD, PhD, of Sorbonne University and Saint-Antoine Hospital, discusses phase II results of the GERCOR NIPICOL study, which suggests nivolumab plus ipilimumab at a fixed duration of 1 year continued to show durable activity in patients with chemoresistant microsatellite instability–high/mismatch repair–deficient metastatic colorectal cancer after 3 years of follow-up. Dr. Cohen points out there is now some question as to whether all patients need 2 years of therapy (Abstract 13).
The ASCO Post Staff
Thierry André, MD, of Sorbonne University and Saint-Antoine Hospital, discusses phase II results from the GERCOR NEONIPIGA study, which suggests neoadjuvant therapy with nivolumab and ipilimumab may be associated with a high pathologic complete response rate in patients with localized microsatellite instability–high or mismatch repair–deficient esophagogastric adenocarcinoma. This study raises the question of whether surgery could be delayed or avoided for some patients (Abstract 244).
