In this podcast new, practice-changing research in gastrointestinal (GI) cancer is considered. Clinical trials focusing on immunotherapies presented at the recent ASCO Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium in San Francisco are discussed.
Highlights include reports of the ONO-4538 study, in which pretreated gastric cancer patients were randomized to receive either nivolumab or best supportive care, and of the CheckMate 040 study in which pretreated patients with hepatocellular carcinoma received nivolumab.
Nivolumab is also assessed in the CheckMate 142 which considered patients with DNA mismatch repair deficient/microsatellite instability high metastatic colorectal cancer.
Other new treatment options and combinations with immunotherapy are briefly considered, but the author suggests that it is too early to draw conclusions from these preliminary data. Emergent side effects from immunotherapy trials in GI cancer are also discussed.
In closing the author considers developments in immunotherapy of GI cancers in the adjuvant setting but notes that trial results are still awaited.
These highlights are presented by Professor Gerald Prager, Medizinische Universitat Wien, Department of Medicine, Vienna, Austria (gerald.prager@gmx.eu) and the interview is conducted by Anna Berghoff, Medical University of Vienna.
http://esmoopen.bmj.com/
Read the abstract on the ESMO Open website: http://esmoopen.bmj.com/content/2/3/e000228.