Gastrointestinal Cancer News

The FDA issued a complete response letter to Incyte indicating it cannot approve the company’s biologics license application that seeks approval of retifanlimab for certain patients with anal cancer.

Bristol Myers Squibb in consultation with the FDA voluntarily withdrew the indication for nivolumab as monotherapy for patients with hepatocellular carcinoma previously treated with sorafenib.

Andre Nussenzweig, PhD, received the ninth annual Basser Global Prize.

In February, ASCO named molecular profiling driving progress in gastrointestinal cancers as its “Advance of the Year.” According to the American Cancer Society, taken collectively, gastrointestinal cancers have the highest incidence in the U.S. and, after lung cancer, are the second leading cause of cancer-related death. Identifying smaller subsets of patients based on tumor-specific and tumor-agnostic alterations provides insight as to who will benefit from personalized therapies. These subsets ultimately end up being substantial in size and, thus, universal testing should indeed be standard of care for all patients with metastatic gastrointestinal cancer.

In 2010, results of the phase 2 BATTLE study demonstrated that choice of cancer therapy could be individualized based upon a patient’s tumor characteristics.

For patients with recurrent and metastatic pancreatic cancer who received chemotherapy as a first-line treatment, early tumor shrinkage correlated with an improved rate of progression-free survival and overall survival.

Atezolizumab plus bevacizumab appeared well-tolerated and resulted in a 40% objective response rate among patients with malignant peritoneal mesothelioma, according to phase 2 study results published in Cancer Discovery.

The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the importance of vaccination, both in terms of protecting individuals from infection and eradicating threats to public health.

Multitarget fecal immunochemical testing yielded better diagnostic accuracy in the detection of advanced adenomas compared with basic FIT, according to research published in Annals of Internal Medicine.

The American Gastroenterological Association published a clinical practice update to describe the role of medications for the chemoprevention of colorectal neoplasia.