Utilizing Biomarkers to Optimize Treatment for Upper Gastrointestinal Cancers

At the Great Debates & Updates in Gastrointestinal Malignancies meeting, Nataliya Uboha, MD, PhD, University of Wisconsin, Carbone Cancer Center, Madison, Wisconsin, discusses the use of biomarkers to choose the best treatment for patients with upper gastrointestinal cancers.

Transcript:

My name is Nataliya Uboha. I'm a medical oncologist from University of Wisconsin, Carbone Cancer Center. I'm delighted to be here at GDU New York. I will be giving a talk about the updates on systemic therapy in the management of upper GI cancers, and I will particularly focus on some of the recent developments.

I will talk about the biomarkers that we utilize to choose the best treatments for our patients right now, and I'll also spend some time talking about some of the upcoming biomarkers such as claudin18.2, that hopefully we'll start utilizing in how we choose treatments for our patients in the near future. There have been a lot of changes in the way we manage patients with upper GI cancers recently. We are now utilizing immunotherapy in combination with chemotherapy as part of the first line treatment for patients with upper GI cancers. We utilize immunotherapy based on the biomarker selection.

All patients' tumors must be tested for PD-L1 expression and whether the tumor is PD-L1 positive or not help us guide whether we utilize these agents. But in the near future, we will also start to test patients tumors for biomarkers such as claudin18.2 based on recent phase 3 data, utilizing anti-claudin antibody zolbetuximab. And so we will have to learn how to choose the best treatment for patients, especially in the situation where biomarkers overlap. We will have to pay attention to the toxicity of these agents as we choose these agents for treatment selections, and we will have to figure out whether there's a way to combine them or sequence them in the future.

Source:

Uboha N. Integrating Biomarkers into the Management of Gastric Cancer: A Focus on Molecular Testing and Targeted Treatment Strategies. Presented at Great Debates & Updates in Gastrointestinal Malignancies; September 28-30; New York, New York.