Jean-Luc Van Laethem

• Université Libre de Bruxelles

2624 Background: Metastatic pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (mPDAC) has a 5-year overall survival (OS) rate of less than 5% and remains a leading cause of cancer related mortality. Mitazalimab, a human CD40 agonistic IgG1 antibody, activates CD40 signaling in myeloid cells, enhancing tumor sensitivity to chemotherapy and licensing dendritic cells...

723 Background: Mitazalimab, a human CD40 agonistic IgG1antibody has demonstrated encouraging results in combination with mFOLFIRINOX (mFFX) in the phase 2 single arm trial OPTIMIZE-1 in patients with mPDAC. We conducted unanchored ITCs to assess the relative efficacy of mitazalimab + mFFX vs FOLFIRINOX (FFX) / mFFX and NALIRIFOX (NFX), the most ef...

PURPOSE The objective of this work was to establish prognostic models in stage III colon cancer (CC) on the basis of transcriptomic signatures of the tumor microenvironment (TME) and cell cycle from the PETACC-8 (training set) and IDEA-France (validation set) trials. PATIENTS AND METHODS 3'RNA sequencing was performed in 1,733 patients from the PE...

Gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine neoplasms(GEP NEN) exhibit substantial biological heterogeneity, impacting clinical management and outcomes. In 2019, the WHO introduced the neuroendocrine tumour(NET) grade 3 (G3) subgroup, characterized by Ki-67>20% and a well-differentiated morphology and poorly differentiated neuroendocrine carcinomas(NEC)...

Background & Aims: Epithelial tumors generally resemble the cellular architecture of their tissue of origin. However, this link remains largely unexplored in the pancreas. Methods: Using Nanostring GeoMx DSP®, Resolve Molecular Cartography® and Nanostring CosMx®, and integration with single cell RNAseq datasets, we mapped the human pancreatic ducta...

Introduction: The resistant tumor microenvironment (TME) and the important molecular heterogeneity of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) are major impediments for the progression of systemic therapies that maintain PDAC as one of the deadliest tumors. Among promising total neoadjuvant strategies for localized PDAC, the addition of ablative ste...

Background Metastatic pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (mPDAC) has a 5-year overall survival (OS) rate of less than 5%, with limited efficacy from existing systemic therapies. OPTIMIZE-1 is an open-label, single-arm, multicenter phase 1b/2 study to evaluate efficacy and safety of mitazalimab, a human CD40 agonistic IgG1 antibody, in combination wit...

Background: The most frequently invaded margins on pancreatoduodenectomy specimens for pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma are vascular margins, particularly the superior mesenteric artery (or mesopancreatic) margin. Due to limited exploration of the radiological aspect of the mesopancreas, the aim of this study was to evaluate mesopancreatic infiltr...

Stress granules (SG) are membraneless ribonucleoprotein-based cytoplasmic organelles that assemble in response to stress. Their formation is often associated with an almost global suppression of translation, and the aberrant assembly or disassembly of these granules has pathological implications in neurodegeneration and cancer. In cancer, and parti...

Simple Summary Pancreatic cancer is challenging to treat due to late diagnosis and limited options. Surgery, the main treatment, often leads to poor long-term outcomes, prompting exploration of alternative approaches like neoadjuvant therapy (NAT) and total neoadjuvant therapy (TNT). While NAT aims to improve surgical success and overall survival,...

1621 Background: While accounting for 40% of the cancer population, older adults are underrepresented in clinical trials. Older-age-selected studies are desirable, but their characteristics and overall performance are unknown. This systematic review assessed design and outcomes of trials focused on this patient population. Methods: We searched Emba...

4133 Background: With a 5 year overall survival (OS) rate <5%, PDAC is a leading cause of cancer related mortality. Currently available systemic therapies are not curative and new therapeutic options are needed. Mitazalimab is a human CD40 agonistic IgG1antibody that reduces immune suppression, sensitizes the tumor to chemotherapy, and induces long...

4100 Background: Based on the results of the open-label, phase 2 KEYNOTE-224 study (NCT02702414), pembro received US FDA and the Center for Drug Evaluation of the China National Medical Products Administration approval for pts with sorafenib-treated aHCC (cohort 1). Durable activity and manageable safety were also observed for pts with tx-naive aHC...

Highlights What are the main findings? This multicenter retrospective study, encompassing two hospital sites for training and leveraging data from forty-seven different hospitals for testing, aimed to develop machine learning models utilising both clinical and radiomics features (individually and in combination) extracted from pre-treatment CT scan...

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) represents a formidable challenge due to its aggressive nature and poor prognosis. The tumor microenvironment (TME) in PDAC, characterized by intense stromal desmoplastic reactions and a dominant presence of cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs), significantly contributes to therapeutic resistance. However, wi...

615 Background: The most frequently invaded surgical margins on pancreatoduodenectomy (PD) specimens of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) are vascular margins, especially the superior mesenteric artery (SMA), also called mesopancreatic margin. Considering embryology, it may be hypothesized that PDAC cells tend to infiltrate the retroperitoneu...

Mitazalimab is a human CD40 agonistic IgG1antibody. Targeting CD40 kickstarts the cancer immunity cycle by licensing dendritic cells leading to tumor specific T cell priming and activation. Furthermore, in PDAC CD40 agonists on myeloid cells promote degradation of the desmoplastic tumor stroma, improving influx of T cells and sensitizing the tumor...

INTRODUCTION: Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) remains one of the deadliest tumors. Unlike other tumors, the progress of systemic therapies has been very slow, mainly due to the peculiar and resistant tumor microenvironment (TME) of PDAC. The addition of ablative stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) in a total neoadjuvant strategy is p...

Background: Surgical resection is the only potentially curative treatment for patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). Neoadjuvant therapy is a rapidly emerging concept that needs to be explored and validated in terms of therapeutic options and survival benefit. In this setting, preoperative modified FOLFIRINOX (mFFX) seems to be feas...

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma is one of the most lethal malignant diseases, with a mortality rate being close to incidence. Due to its heterogeneity and plasticity, as well as the lack of distinct symptoms in the early phases, it is very often diagnosed at an advanced stage, resulting in poor prognosis. Traditional tissue biopsies remain the gol...

Cytoplasmic stress granules (SG) are attracting growing attention in cancer research. As such, a study published in Cell has certainly served as a trigger for this trend which currently asserts that SG are a relevant therapeutic target. Here, we would like to express a warning about the conclusions of this article, as well as of the subsequent stud...

A ‘classical’ and a ‘basal‐like’ subtype of pancreatic cancer have been reported, with differential expression of GATA6 and different dosages of mutant KRAS . We established in situ detection of KRAS point mutations and mRNA panels for the consensus subtypes aiming to project these findings to paraffin‐embedded clinical tumour samples for spatial q...

Background For patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), surgical resection remains the only potentially curative treatment. Surgery is generally followed by postoperative chemotherapy associated with improved survival, yet neoadjuvant therapy is a rapidly emerging concept requiring to be explored and validated in terms of treatment op...

Background Currently, nanoliposomal irinotecan (nal-IRI) + 5-fluorouracil/folinic acid (5-FU/LV) is the only approved second-line treatment for patients suffering from metastatic pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (mPDAC). However, also other chemotherapeutic regimens are used in this setting and due to the lack of clear real-world data on the effica...

Background: SMAD4 is inactivated in 50-55% of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinomas (PDACs). SMAD4 loss of expression has been described as a negative prognostic factor in PDAC associated with an increased rate of metastasis and resistance to therapy. However, the impact of SMAD4 inactivation in patients receiving neoadjuvant therapy (NAT) is not well...

3523 Background: The objective of this work was to establish predictive models of the risk of recurrence in stage III colon cancer (CC) based on transcriptomic signatures of the tumor microenvironment (TME) and cell cycle from the PETACC-8 (training set) and IDEA- France (validation set) trials. Methods: 3'RNAseq was performed in 1733 patients from...

4139 Background: Mitazalimab is a human CD40 agonistic IgG1antibody. Targeting CD40 kickstarts the cancer immunity cycle by licensing dendritic cells leading to tumor specific T cell priming and activation. Furthermore, in PDAC CD40 agonists on myeloid cells promote degradation of the desmoplastic tumor stroma, improving influx of T cells and chemo...

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is a fatal disease with poor prognosis. Gemcitabine is the first-line therapy for PDAC, but gemcitabine resistance is a major impediment to achieving satisfactory clinical outcomes. This study investigated whether methylglyoxal (MG), an oncometabolite spontaneously formed as a by-product of glycolysis, notabl...

Background and objectives: The role of radiotherapy in the therapeutic sequence of nonmetastatic pancreatic cancer (PC) is controversial, including isotoxic high-dose stereotactic body radiotherapy (iHD-SBRT). This study aimed to compare postoperative outcome of patients with nonmetastatic PC undergoing neoadjuvant treatment (NAT) including iHD-SB...

Background and aims: Endoscopic ultrasound-guided radiofrequency ablation (EUS-RFA) is emerging as a safe and effective treatment for pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors. We aimed to compare EUS-RFA and surgical resection for the treatment of pancreatic insulinoma (PI). Methods: Patients with sporadic PI who underwent EUS-RFA at 23 centers or surgi...

Simple Summary Pancreatobiliary cancers are a group of malignancies affecting the pancreas and biliary tract and are among the cancers with the lowest survival rate. Current first-line treatments only offer a modest increase in overall survival, and there is an urgent need to develop new therapeutic strategies. Emerging evidence suggests cyclin-dep...

Simple Summary Progress in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma cancer (PDAC) has been, and still is, difficult. Compared to other solid tumors, the PDAC’s tumor microenvironment (TME) is unique and complex and prevents systemic agents from effectively penetrating and killing tumor cells. Radiotherapy (RT) has the potential to modulate the TME and ther...

Given the lack of direct comparative evidence, we aimed to compare the oncological outcomes of localized pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) treated in the same tertiary cancer center with isotoxic high-dose stereotactic body radiotherapy (iHD-SBRT) or conventional chemoradiotherapy (CRT). Biopsy-proven borderline/locally advanced patients trea...

Introduction: SMAD4, the central mediator of the Transforming Growth-Beta (TGF-Beta) signaling pathway, is inactivated in 50-55% of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinomas (PDACs). SMAD4 loss of expression has been described as a negative prognostic factor in PDAC and associated with increased rate of metastasis and resistance to adjuvant therapy. Howeve...

Mitazalimab is a human CD40 agonistic IgG1antibody being developed as cancer immunotherapy. Targeting CD40 kickstarts the cancer immunity cycle by licensing DCs leading to tumor-specific T cell priming and activation. Furthermore, in PDAC, CD40 agonism activates myeloid cells and promotes the degradation of the desmoplastic tumor stroma, improving...

Background: This analysis evaluated the morbimortality and the potential benefit of esophagectomy for cancer in elderly patients. Methods: Patients who underwent esophagectomy for EC were divided into elderly (≥70 years) and nonelderly (<70 years) groups. The groups were compared regarding patient and tumor characteristics, postoperative morbimo...

Background: While circulating tumour (ct)DNA is an indicator of minimal residual disease and negative prognostic factor in stage II-III colon cancer, no study has ever analysed the value of this biomarker in colon cancer patients treated with neoadjuvant chemotherapy. We sought to fill this gap by using prospectively collected plasma samples from...

4109 Background: Pembrolizumab monotherapy showed durable antitumor activity and a manageable safety profile in patients with sorafenib-treated (cohort 1) and treatment-naive (cohort 2) aHCC in the open-label, phase 2 KEYNOTE-224 (NCT02702414) study. Longer term data from KEYNOTE-224 after ̃3 years of follow-up for patients with treatment-naive aHC...

e16237 Background: Mitazalimab is a human CD40 agonistic IgG1antibody being developed for cancer immunotherapy. Targeting CD40 kickstarts the cancer immunity cycle by licensing DCs leading to tumor-specific T cell priming and activation. Furthermore, in PDAC CD40 agonists on myeloid cells promote degradation of the desmoplastic tumor stroma, improv...

Importance: Pancreatic cancer is the third most common cause of cancer death; however, randomized clinical trials (RCTs) of survival in patients with resectable pancreatic cancer lack mandatory measures for reporting baseline and prognostic factors, which hampers comparisons between outcome measures. Objective: To develop a consensus on baseline...

TPS226 Background: Despite recent improvements, management of locally advanced rectal cancer (LARC) remains challenging, and many patients (pts) still experience recurrence. In preclinical models, combining Rego with an anti-PD-1 inhibitor led to superior tumour growth suppression as compared with either treatment alone. In a phase I clinical trial...

Background Pancreatic medullary carcinoma (PMC) is a rare pancreatic tumor, usually showing the presence of microsatellite instability, mostly MLH1 silencing, and a wild-type KRAS mutation status. We report here a PMC arising from a Pancreatic Intraductal Papillary Mucinous Neoplasm (IPMN), both having KRAS and TP53 mutations. Case presentation We...

Background: Our aim was to evaluate the feasibility and safety of isotoxic high-dose (iHD) stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) in a total neoadjuvant sequence for the treatment of localized pancreatic adenocarcinoma. Materials and methods: Biopsy-proven borderline resectable/locally advanced pancreatic cancer (BR/LAPC) patients were inclu...

Background: Concomitant venous resection during pancreaticoduodenectomy (PD) for pancreatic adenocarcinoma with mesenterico-portal vein involvement is increasingly performed to achieve oncological resection. This study aims to report a single centre experience in peritoneal patch (PP) as autologous graft for vascular reconstruction (VR) during PD....

Impaired DNA damage repair (DDR) is increasingly recognised as a hallmark in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). It is estimated that around 14% of human PDACs harbour mutations in genes involved in DDR, including, amongst others, BRCA1/2, PALB2, ATM, MSH2, MSH6 and MLH1. Recently, DDR intervention by PARP inhibitor therapy has demonstrated ef...

Objective The aggressive basal-like molecular subtype of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) harbours a ΔNp63 (p40) gene expression signature reminiscent of a basal cell type. Distinct from other epithelia with basal tumours, ΔNp63 ⁺ basal cells reportedly do not exist in the normal pancreas. Design We evaluated ΔNp63 expression in human pancr...

Introduction Circulating tumour (ct)DNA is an indicator of minimal residual disease and negative prognostic factor in stage II-III CC treated with surgery +/- adjuvant chemotherapy. No study, however, has ever analysed the prognostic value of this biomarker in CC patients (pts) treated with neoadjuvant chemotherapy. We sought to evaluate the progno...

Background Regorafenib is a standard treatment for refractory metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC). In view of the toxicity burden, significant research efforts have been made to increase the therapeutic ratio of this multikinase inhibitor. Predictive factors for treatment-related adverse events (TRAEs), however, are still lacking. Materials & Meth...

4074 Background: Results from cohort 1 of KEYNOTE-224, an open-label, single-arm, multi-country phase 2 trial, demonstrated that pembro monotherapy was efficacious and tolerable in patients (pts) with advanced HCC previously treated with sorafenib. Here, we report results from KEYNOTE-224 cohort 2, which enrolled pts with advanced HCC and no prior...

3600 Background: ctDNA is an indicator of minimal residual disease and negative prognostic factor in stage II-III CC treated with surgery +/- adjuvant chemotherapy (CT). No study, however, has ever analysed the prognostic value of this biomarker in CC patients (pts) treated with NACT. We sought to evaluate the prognostic value of baseline and early...

Background Few patients with pancreatic adenocarcinoma (PAC) are eligible for surgery. Patients with early relapse have a poor prognosis and might be better candidates for a medical approach. Clinical and pathological parameters only partially predict recurrence and are only obtained after surgery. PAC subtypes based on gene expression were propose...

Simple Summary The microorganisms colonizing the epithelial surfaces of the human body, called microbiota, have been shown to influence the initiation, progression and response to therapy of many solid tumors, including pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, the most prominent form of pancreatic cancer. Here, we summarize the current knowledge about the...

Undifferentiated carcinoma of the pancreas is an aggressive but rare tumor for which several other terms have been used to describe its histological appearance. In addition, as osteoclast-like giant cells may accompany undifferentiated carcinoma of the pancreas, the WHO Classification distinguishes undifferentiated carcinoma with osteoclast-like gi...

Introduction : Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinomas (PDACs) are tumours that remain associated with a poor prognosis which is largely explained by the presence of a globally immunosuppressive tumour microenvironment. In particular, PDACs have been recognized as using the CCL2 / CCR2 (C-C chemokine receptor type 2) chemokine pathway. Overexpression of...

Introduction : Les adénocarcinomes pancréatiques (AP) sont des tumeurs restant associées à un mauvais pronostic qui est en grande partie expliqué par la présence d’un microenvironnement tumoral globalement immunosuppresseur. En particulier, les AP ont été reconnus comme utilisant la voie des chimiokines CCL2/CCR2. La surexpression de CCL2 dans les...

BJMO - Complete surgical resection, most often associated with perioperative chemotherapy, is the only way to offer a chance of cure for patients with pancreatic cancer. One of the most important factors in determining survival outcome that can be influenced by the surgeon is the R0 resection. However, the proximity of mesenteric vessels in cephali...

Purpose Baseline neutrophil count may predict overall survival (OS) in patients with locally advanced pancreatic cancer (LAPC). Methods and Materials The international multicenter randomized LAP07 phase 3 trial has enrolled 442 patients with LAPC. We analyzed the prognostic value of both baseline neutrophilia (neutrophil count >7 g/L) and elevated...

Complete surgical resection, most often associated with perioperative chemotherapy, is the only way to offer a chance of cure for patients with pancreatic cancer. One of the most important factors in determining survival outcome that can be influenced by the surgeon is the R0 resection. However, the proximity of mesenteric vessels in cephalic pancr...

297 Background: Results from cohort 1 of KEYNOTE-224, an open-label, single-arm, multi-country phase II trial, demonstrated that pembro monotherapy was efficacious and tolerable in patients (pts) with advanced HCC previously treated with sorafenib. Here, we report results from KEYNOTE-224 cohort 2, which enrolled pts with advanced HCC and no prior...

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) remains one of the most aggressive solid tumours with an estimated 5-year overall survival rate of 7% for all stages combined. In this highly resistant disease that is located in the vicinity of many radiosensitive organs, the role of radiotherapy (RT) and indications for its use in this setting have been deb...

Background The role of adjuvant chemotherapy in biliary tract cancer is controversial. We performed a systematic review and meta-analysis to assess the effect of adjuvant chemotherapy in biliary tract cancer patients. Methods A literature search was performed to identify randomized controlled trials (RCTs) comparing adjuvant chemotherapy versus ob...

Background: While distal pancreatectomy with splenectomy (DPS) is the reference treatment for pancreatic body and tail neoplasia, oncological benefits of splenectomy have never been demonstrated. Involvement of spleen, splenic hilum and lymph nodes (LN) was therefore assessed on DPS specimens. Methods: All DPS pancreatic neoplasia specimens obta...

Pancreatic cancer is one of the most lethal solid organ tumors. Due to the rising incidence, late diagnosis, and limited treatment options, it is expected to be the second leading cause of cancer deaths in high income countries in the next decade. The multidisciplinary treatment of this disease depends on the stage of cancer at diagnosis (resectabl...

Adjuvant treatment for stage II colon cancer (CC) can be proposed to patients with high-risk disease. Recently, 2.35 ng/mL carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) was identified as the best cut-off value. This post hoc analysis of the MOSAIC trial assessed post-operative CEA prognostic value for survival outcomes and predictive value for the addition of oxa...

Background: Several new treatment options have become available for pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), but the support for their use for resectable, borderline resectable and locally advanced PDAC is unclear. Methods: A survey was distributed to the members of the European-African Hepato-Pancreato Biliary Association (E-AHPBA) and the panc...

Background We explored and validated the association of postoperative carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) with disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS) in stage III colon cancer. Methods Patients with stage III colon cancer from the MOSAIC and PETACC-8 trials were enrolled. The relation between CEA and outcomes was continuously modeled wit...

e15622 Background: The REACHIN trial met its primary endpoint of improving PFS for patients with biliary tract cancer (BTC) treated with regorafenib (R) as compared to placebo (P): Median (m) PFS for R was 3.0 months (mo) (95% CI: 2.3-4.9) and 1.5 mo (95% CI : 1.2-2.0) for P with an HR= 0.49 (95% CI: 0.29-0.81), p=0.005 (Demols A et al, ASCO-GI 201...

3503 Background: MOSAIC and C-07 showed that oxaliplatin (OX) added to 5-fluorouracil plus leucovorin significantly improved disease free survival (DFS). However, OX is associated with neurotoxicity and the vast majority of patients do not receive OX-benefit; highlighting the importance of an OX-benefit predictor. In C-07, colon tumors with a CRCA...

3610 Background: Although being the standard-of-care for stage III colon cancer, no biomarkers can identify patients (pts) who benefit from adjuvant chemotherapy. In metastatic pts, the lack of metabolic response (mR) in FDG-PET/CT after 1 chemotherapy cycle predicts the absence of treatment benefit. The PePiTA study aims to evaluate if the absence...

Background Adjuvant therapy improves the prognosis of stage II & III colon cancer patients. Unfortunately, most patients do not benefit from this treatment. PePITA (NCT00994864) is a prospective, multicenter, non-randomized study whose primary objective is to predict the outcome of adjuvant therapy in colon cancer. Methods The primary objective wa...

Background The prognostic value of body composition in cancer patients has been widely studied during the last decade. The main finding of these studies is that sarcopenia, or skeletal muscle depletion, assessed by CT imaging correlates with a reduced overall survival (OS). By contrast, the prognostic value of fat mass remains ill-defined. This stu...

345 Background: A high clinical unmet need remains in treating advanced or metastatic biliary tract cancers (BTC) after failure of gemcitabine and platinum-based chemotherapy, with no standard of care. Regorafenib is potent oral multi-kinase inhibitor of kinases involved in tumor angiogenesis, oncogenesis and tumor microenvironment. It has demonstr...

Pancreatic cancer is considered to be one of the most aggressive cancers. For unknown reasons, the incidence of pancreatic cancer is slowly rising and so too are mortality rates. Over 75% of patients are diagnosed with locally advanced disease or with metastases; and more than 95% of patients have metastases at diagnosis or will develop metastases...

Patients with hereditary gastrointestinal (GI) cancers represent a substantial fraction of the overall affected population. Although awareness for hereditary GI cancer syndromes is on the rise, identification of patients and measures of surveillance are often unclear in everyday clinical routine. Therefore, the European Society of Digestive Oncolog...

Background & aims: Genomic studies have revealed subtypes of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDA) based on their molecular features, but different studies have reported different classification systems. It is a challenge to obtain high-quality, freshly frozen tissue for clinical analysis and determination of PDA subtypes. We aimed to redefine su...

Background: Deoxyuridine triphosphatase (dUTPase) is the key gatekeeper enzyme that inhibits 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) misincorporation into DNA in tumor cells, and its overexpression is associated with resistance to 5-FU-based chemotherapy.¹ TAS-114 is an oral dUTPase inhibitor and has shown favorable safety and preliminary efficacy in combination wit...

Introduction: Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDA) carries a dismal prognosis. Virtually all PDA are characterized by mutation of four driver genes: KRAS, TP53, CDKN2A and SMAD4 and a long tail of rarely mutated genes. Application of targeted next-generation sequencing (NGS) has entered clinical routine for colon, lung and other cancers. Among pa...

Purpose: There are conflicting results concerning the prognostic value of the CpG island methylator phenotype (CIMP) in non-metastatic colon cancer (CC) patients. We studied this phenotype in stage III CC characterized for mismatch repair (MMR), RAS and BRAF status and treated with adjuvant FOLFOX-based regimen. Experimental design: Tumor sample...

Background: Patients with advanced gastric or gastro-oesophageal junction cancer that progresses on chemotherapy have poor outcomes. We compared pembrolizumab with paclitaxel in patients with advanced gastric or gastro-oesophageal junction cancer that progressed on first-line chemotherapy with a platinum and fluoropyrimidine. Methods: This rando...

International guidelines made RAS (KRAS and NRAS) status a prerequisite for the use of anti-EGFR agents for metastatic colorectal cancer (CRC) patients. Daily, new data emerges on the theranostic and prognostic role of molecular biomarkers; this is a strong incentive for a validated, sensitive, and broadly available molecular screening test. Next-g...

Purpose: To prospectively assess chemotherapy-induced changes in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDA) with diffusion-weighted (DW)-MR quantitative metrics, including apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) and histogram-derived parameters, compared with RECIST 1.1. Methods: 24 patients underwent DW-MR at baseline, week-2 and week-8 after chemothe...

Variations in the reporting of potentially confounding variables in studies investigating systemic treatments for unresectable pancreatic cancer pose challenges in drawing accurate comparisons between findings. In this Review, we establish the first international consensus on mandatory baseline and prognostic characteristics in future trials for th...

Importance We know of no data on the prognostic value of primary tumor location (PTL) according to BRAF, RAS, and microsatellite instability (MSI) status in patients who have undergone resection for colon cancer (CC) and have been treated with current standard adjuvant chemotherapy. Objective To determine the prognostic and predictive value of PTL...

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDA) is a fatal and insidious malignant disease for which clinicians’ tools are restricted by the current limits in knowledge of how tumor and stromal cells act during the disease. Among PDA hallmarks, neural remodeling (NR) and perineural invasion (PNI) drastically influence quality of life and patient survival. I...

Background and scope: In the epoch of precision medicine and personalised oncology, which aims to deliver the right treatment to the right patient, molecular genetic biomarkers are a topic of growing interest. The aim of this expert discussion and position paper is to review the current status of various molecular tests for gastrointestinal (GI) c...