A critical review of key studies from the ASCO 2016 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium, held January 2016, is presented in this podcast. A number of tumor areas, including gastric, esophageal and colorectal cancers, are considered with an emphasis on recent developments in immunotherapy. Studies reviewed include the CheckMate-032 trial, which assessed the activity of the anti-PD-1 antibody nivolumab in patients with advanced gastric or gastroesophageal junction cancer, the KEYNOTE-028 trial, for which results of the esophageal carcinoma cohort treated with pembrolizumab were presented, and updated results of a trial considering PD-1 blockade in mismatch repair deficient non-colorectal gastrointestinal cancers. Biomarkers are further considered in the Mavericc trial which sought to stratify metastatic colorectal cancer patients by ERCC1 in order to predict their response to platinum-based treatments.
Neoadjuvant therapy was considered with the results of a study, from the Polish Colorectal Study Group, using neoadjuvant chemoradiation for fixed cT3 or cT4 rectal cancers, and the 5-year follow up results of the ACCORD 12 trial, which aimed to assess an increased radiation dose plus oxaliplatin versus standard radiotherapy of 45 Gy with concurrent capecitabine in rectal cancer.
These highlights are presented by Gerald W. Prager, Medical University of Vienna, Austria (gerald.prager@meduniwien.ac.at). The podcast is conducted by Anna Berghoff, Department of Medicine, Medical University of Vienna, Austria.