Gastrointestinal Cancer News

A single negative screening colonoscopy correlated with reduced colorectal cancer incidence and mortality for up to 17.4 years, according to a study published in Annals of Internal Medicine.

Neoadjuvant therapy-induced sarcopenia in patients who underwent neoadjuvant therapy for pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma correlated with increased disease recurrence and overall mortality, and reduced overall survival, according to a presentation from Digestive Disease Week.

Hepatitis C virus infection remains a strong driver of hepatocellular carcinoma with a high rate of progression to cirrhosis over an extended follow-up period, according to a study in International Journal of Molecular Sciences.

Hepatocellular carcinoma is the most common type of liver cancer worldwide. Individuals who have been diagnosed with hepatitis B, hepatitis C or cirrhosis have the highest risk for developing HCC. While the incidence rate decreased among younger and middle-aged adults between 1992 and 2015, the overall incidence rate of HCC in the United States increased from 4.1 cases per 100,000 people in 1992 to 9.5 in 2015.

Thomas A. Abrams, MD, senior physician at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, spoke with Healio about treatment options for patients with hepatocellular carcinoma. He discusses first-line treatment, guidance on aspirin use and important, recent FDA approvals.

A novel armored chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy targeting the glypican-3 protein showed antitumor activity among children with advanced liver cancer, according to preliminary results of a phase 1 trial presented at the virtual American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy Annual Meeting.

Regular use of aspirin appeared to reduce the risk for several digestive tract cancers, according to results of a meta-analysis published in Annals of Oncology.

The FDA cleared an investigational new drug application for CT041, a chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy for the treatment of adenocarcinoma of the stomach, gastroesophageal junction or pancreas.

Clinical outcomes for patients with malignancies have improved in the past decade, in part due to the emergence of VEGF inhibitors.

The FDA has approved ripretinib tablets for the treatment of advanced gastrointestinal stromal tumor, or GIST, in the fourth-line setting.