Recent advances in gastrointestinal cancers

Abstract

Gastrointestinal cancers occur in a total of eight different locations, each of them with a different standard of care. This article is not an exhaustive review of what has been published in 2020. We have concentrated on the thirteen phase III randomized studies that are practice-changing. All these studies are oral presentations which have been given in one of the four major oncology congresses, namely American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), ASCO gastrointestinal (GI), European Society of Medical Oncology (ESMO) and ESMO-GI. We provide a concise view of these major trials and their main outcomes, and put these results into context.

Keywords: Gastric cancer; Gastrointestinal; Gastrointestinal cancers; Immunotherapy; Practice changing trials.

Figure 1

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Figure 2

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Figure 3

Overall survival and disease-free survival with 3 mo vs 6 mo of adjuvant therapy (international duration evaluation of adjuvant therapy). A: Overall survival; B: Disease-free survival. Citation: Sobrero AF, Andre T, Meyerhardt JA, Grothey A, Iveson T, Yoshino T, Sougklakos I, Meyers JP, Labianca R, Saunders MP, Vernerey D, Yamanaka T, Boukovinas I, Oki E, Georgoulias V, Torri V, Harkin A, Taieb J, Shields AF, Shi Q. Overall survival (OS) and long-term disease-free survival (DFS) of three vs six months of adjuvant (adj) oxaliplatin and fluoropyrimidine-based therapy for patients (pts) with stage III colon cancer (CC): Final results from the IDEA (International Duration Evaluation of Adj chemotherapy) collaboration. J Clin Oncol 2020; 38(15): 4004-4004. Copyright ©The Author(s). Published by the American Society of Clinical Oncology[21]. DFS: Disease-free survival; HR: Hazard ratio; OS: Overall survival.