Gastrointestinal Cancer News

In recognition of Cancer Immunotherapy Month, Cancer Research Institute has organized a series of educational and social events designed to raise awareness regarding these treatment options.

Three companies — eFFECTOR Therapeutics, Pfizer and Merck KGaA — entered a clinical collaboration to evaluate the combination of eFT508 and avelumab for patients with microsatellite stable colorectal cancer.

The U.S. Multi-Society Task Force on Colorectal Cancer Screening has released new recommendations that rank screening options for average-risk individuals, acknowledge the increasing incidence of CRC in younger Americans, and suggest that black Americans should begin screening earlier at age 45.

The most significant risk factor for mortality in patients with hepatitis C-related cirrhosis and successfully treated hepatocellular carcinoma was hepatic decompensation within the first year of follow-up, according to a recently published study.

Click here to read the Cover Story, “Malnutrition ‘almost epidemic’ among patients with advanced cancer.”

The FDA granted orphan drug designation to IT-139 for the treatment of pancreatic cancer, according to the drug’s manufacturer.

The addition of cetuximab or bevacizumab to a first-line chemotherapy regimen demonstrated similar OS, PFS and response rates in patients with KRAS wild-type untreated advanced or metastatic colorectal cancer, according to results of a phase 3 clinical trial.

Fecal immunochemical testing for colorectal cancer demonstrated high overall diagnostic accuracy indicating it as a viable, safe, simple, low-cost, comfortable alternative screening method for patients at increased risk for colorectal cancer, according to research published in JAMA Internal Medicine.

Tuya Pal, MD, has been appointed associate director of cancer health disparities at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center.

A: Gastrointestinal endoscopic ultrasound (EUS) is an important tool for cancer staging because many treatment algorithms are determined by EUS tumor staging. Computed tomography (CT) scan should generally be obtained before EUS to determine whether there is any metastatic disease that would make the patient a nonsurgical candidate. If there is no evidence of metastatic disease, then EUS should be performed for locoregional staging. The tumor-node-metastases (TNM) staging system is used for luminal GI and pancreatic cancer. The EUS accuracy for staging GI and pancreatic cancer is approximately 85% for T-staging and 75% for N-staging. EUS-guided fine needle aspiration (EUS FNA) can be used to obtain tissue diagnosis of tumors as well as peritumoral metastatic disease.