Gastrointestinal Cancer News

A combination of encorafenib and cetuximab, with or without binimetinib, demonstrated significant improvement in patient-reported quality-of-life assessments compared with standard-of-care chemotherapy among patients with BRAF V600E-mutant metastatic colorectal cancer, according to results of the randomized phase 3 BEACON CRC study scheduled for presentation at Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium.

The FDA granted orphan drug designation to the antibody-drug conjugate OBI-999 for the treatment of gastric cancer, according to the agent’s manufacturer.

Young adults with colorectal cancer who resided in areas with the lowest incomes and high school graduation rates had a 24% increased risk for death than their counterparts in areas with the highest incomes and graduation rates, according to study results scheduled for presentation at Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium.

Atezolizumab in combination with bevacizumab delayed time to deterioration of quality of life, physical functioning and role functioning compared with standard-of-care sorafenib as first-line treatment for unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma, according to patient-reported outcomes of the randomized phase 3 IMbrave 150 study scheduled for presentation at Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium.

The FDA granted orphan drug designation to durvalumab and tremelimumab for treatment of patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma.

Incidence of early-onset gastric cancer that is clinically and genetically distinct from late-onset disease has increased steadily in the United States, an “alarming phenomenon” that warrants further research, according to a study published in Surgery.

The randomized phase 3 APACT trial was a well-designed adjuvant trial that evaluated the addition of nab-paclitaxel (Abraxane, Celgene) to gemcitabine — the combination was planned based upon the positive results of the MPACT trial in the metastatic setting. Interestingly, around the same time as the MPACT trial, FOLFIRINOX also showed improved OS in the metastatic setting compared with single-agent gemcitabine. Although median survival with FOLFIRINOX appeared to be numerically superior than with gemcitabine and nab-paclitaxel, subsequent real-world analyses indicated no significant differences in OS or time to treatment failure between the two regimens. It is therefore surprising that although the adjuvant FOLFIRINOX study was positive, the adjuvant gemcitabine and nab-paclitaxel trial was not.

Tumor DNA sequencing to identify appropriate targeted therapies is revolutionizing treatment of a variety of cancers, and pancreatic cancer — a notoriously deadly disease — is no exception.

The FDA today approved avapritinib for the treatment of adults with unresectable or metastatic gastrointestinal stromal tumors that harbor a platelet-derived growth factor receptor alpha, or PDGFRA, exon 18 mutation.

Cancer mortality rates dropped by 29% between 1991 and 2017 in the United States, with a 2.2% drop between 2016 and 2017, according to according to data from Cancer Statistics 2020, American Cancer Society’s annual report on cancer rates and trends.