Dr. Chau on Analysis of Asian and Western Patients With Gastric/GEJ Cancer

Ian Chau, MD, consultant medical oncologist, Royal Marsden Hospital, discusses an analysis of Asian and Western patients with chemotherapy-refractory gastric/gastroesophageal junction (GEJ) cancer.

It is known that Eastern and Western patients with gastric/GEJ cancer are different in terms of etiology of the gastric cancer and the outcome. Asian patients with gastric/GEJ cancer seem to survive longer, and are diagnosed at an earlier stage, compared with Western populations, says Chau. This is due to these patients being younger with less comorbidities.

In an analysis of cohorts from the ATTRACTION-2 and CheckMate-032 trials, investigators described the safety profile of nivolumab (Opdivo) in Asian and Western patients who had received 2 or more prior lines of chemotherapy. This population included patients who received more than 1 dose of nivolumab at the data cutoff of August 2016 for ATTRACTION-2 and March 2016 for CheckMate-032. Investigators aimed to answer the question of difference in outcomes between Eastern and Western patients with gastric/GEJ cancer when treated with immunotherapy.