Novel Therapy Shows Promise in Group of Patients with Metastatic Colon Cancer

Patients with HER2-expressing metastatic colorectal cancer appeared to achieve durable and promising results after treatment with trastuzumab deruxtecan (T-DXd), according to recent findings.

Moreover, data from the phase 2 study, which were presented during the 2021 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting, demonstrated that treatment with the antibody-drug conjugate was safe with only 13 patients having to discontinue treatment as a result of side effects.

In an interview with CURE®, study author Dr. Kanwal P.S. Raghav, an associate professor in the Department of Gastrointestinal Medical Oncology at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, discussed why the results of this trial are pivotal for this patient population.

“It's a very well-tolerated treatment. And it showed us very robust and promising response rates,” said Raghav. “So what we did see is that our overall survival, progression-free survival as well as response from this therapy in this population appeared to be far superior to what would have been expected from other treatments that these patients would have gotten.”

Transcription:

This study is very pivotal in the sense that it showed us that trastuzumab deruxtecan, which is an antibody drug conjugate – so it's a HER2 antibody, which is attached to a very potent chemotherapy. And it delivers this in a very targeted fashion only to the colon cancer or the tumor cells. Thereby it limits systemic toxicity, or side effects from this drug. So it's a very well-tolerated treatment. And it showed us very robust and promising response rates. So what we did see is that our overall survival, progression-free survival as well as response from this therapy in this population appeared to be far superior to what would have been expected from other treatments that these patients would have gotten.

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