Research Reflections: Weinberg Weighs in on Thought-Provoking Data in CRC

Welcome to a very special edition of OncLive^® On Air! I’m your host today, Jessica Hergert.

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Today, we had the pleasure of speaking with Benjamin Weinberg, MD, to discuss key takeaways from the 2020 ASCO Virtual Scientific Program in colorectal cancer (CRC).

Among the most notable studies that were presented in CRC was the phase 3 KEYNOTE-177 trial, which showed a significant improvement in progression-free survival with pembrolizumab versus chemotherapy in patients with microsatellite instability high/mismatch repair–deficient disease.

Moreover, in the phase 2 DESTINY-CRC01 trial, trastuzumab deruxtecan showed early signs of clinical activity in heavily pretreated patients with metastatic HER2-positive CRC.

For patients with liver metastases, data from the phase 2/3 JCOG0603 trial suggested that patients undergoing curative hepatectomy for CRC liver metastases should not be given adjuvant FOLFOX chemotherapy due to a lack of overall survival (OS) benefit.

In the radiation space, findings from the RAPIDO study demonstrated that short-course radiation is similar to traditional chemoradiation with regard to survival benefit, but superior in terms of the time to disease-related failure.

Finally, the field received data from the IDEA trial which showed that the only group of patients who should be considered for 6 months of FOLFOX are patients with T4 and/or N2 disease.

In our exclusive interview, Dr. Weinberg, an assistant professor of medicine in the Division of Hematology and Oncology at the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center at Georgetown University, Medstar Health, shared the clinical implications of these data in the treatment of patients with CRC and projected what the future may hold in the space.