GI CANCERS

Molecular testing of patients with colorectal cancer should be incorporated into standard practice to establish the mutations each patient has that would affect their response to treatment with EGFR-targeted therapies.

John L. Marshall, MD, discusses efforts to determine the underlying molecular basis for the sidedness issue in colorectal cancer.

Manish A. Shah, MD, discusses the HERACLES clinical trial, which explored treatment with trastuzumab (Herceptin) and lapatinib (Tykerb) in patients with HER2-amplified metastatic colorectal cancer.

The PD-1 inhibitor nivolumab showed single-agent activity in previously treated patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the anal canal, resulting in an overall response rate of 24.3%.

Manish Shah, MD, discusses ongoing efforts to understand the distinction between early-onset CRC and traditional CRC.

Sequential Therapy for Metastatic Pancreatic Cancer

Steven H. Lin, MD, PhD, discusses the benefits of advanced radiation technologies, including IMRT and proton therapy.

The combination of trastuzumab (Herceptin) and lapatinib (Tykerb) resulted in a 30% objective response rate (ORR) in heavily pretreated patients with HER2-positive metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC), suggesting a new targeted therapy strategy for later lines of treatment that supports testing for the aberration.

The impact of the recent findings regarding tumor sidedness in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer are potentially practice-changing, with data demonstrating that patients with right-sided tumors have a poorer prognosis than those with left-sided tumors. In addition, sidedness could be clinically relevant as a predictive biomarker of response to standard frontline treatments.

Brian Hemphill, MD, provides insight on some of the challenges currently being faced in GI malignancies—specifically, colorectal cancer, pancreatic cancer, and gastic cancer—and how molecular profiles of tumors will dramatically change outcomes for these patients.

Ramesh K. Ramanathan, MD, discusses clinical trials investigating combination treatments with standard chemotherapies to improve outcomes in pancreatic cancer.

Jeffrey A. Drebin, MD, PhD, has been named chairman of the Department of Surgery at Memorial Sloan Kettering (MSK) Cancer Center, MSK has announced.

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute has announced Brian Wolpin, MD, MPH, has been appointed Robert T. and Judith B. Hale Chair in Pancreatic Cancer.

Michael J. Overman, MD, medical oncologist, Department of Gastrointestinal Medical Oncology, Division of Cancer Medicine, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses updated results from the CheckMate-142 trial, which investigated nivolumab alone or in combination with ipilimumab in patients with DNA mismatch repair deficient/microsatellite instability high metastatic colorectal cancer. 

Arturo Loaiza-Bonilla, MD,&nbsp;the potential role of <em>BRAF</em> and <em>CTNNB1</em> mutations in the survival difference between CRC patients with left- and right-sided tumors.

Ali Maawy, MD, and Patrick M. Boland, MD, provide a brief review of the immune environment of colorectal cancer (CRC) and recently reported studies of immunotherapy in CRC.

Telotristat ethyl has been approved by the FDA for use in&nbsp;combination with somatostatin analog as a treatment for carcinoid syndrome diarrhea&nbsp;in patients with metastatic neuroendocrine tumors.

NYU Langone has announced Theodore H. Welling III, MD, will lead a new state-of-the-art liver cancer program at the medical center to advance clinical care and accelerate the translation of lab breakthroughs into superior treatments.

John L. Marshall, MD, chief, Division of Hematology and Oncology, Medstar Georgetown University Hospital, discusses the current state of liver-directed therapy in metastatic colorectal cancer.&nbsp;

The results of a randomized trial showed patients with advanced colorectal cancer had a modest gain in progression-free survival with the addition of irinotecan to standard chemotherapy plus an angiogenesis inhibitor as induction therapy.