Dr. Ghidini on the Effects of Body Weight Loss in Gastric/GEJ Cancer

Michele Ghidini, MD, PhD, medical oncologist, Fondazione IRCCS Ca' Granda Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico, Milan, Italy, discusses the effects of body weight loss in gastric/gastroesophageal junction (GEJ) cancer.

The phase 3 TAGS trial demonstrated clinical benefit with trifluridine/tipiracil (TAS-102; Lonsurf) vs placebo in patients with metastatic gastric/GEJ cancer who had received 2 or more prior chemotherapy regimens. During the 2021 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium, findings from a post-hoc analysis of the TAGS trial showed that early body weight loss of 3% or greater was a strong negative prognostic factor for overall survival (OS) irrespective of treatment with TAS-102 or placebo.

In the TAS-102 arm, the median OS was 6.5 months in patients who had less than 3% body weight loss and 4.9 months in those who had 3% or more body weight loss. In the placebo arm, the median OS was 6.0 months vs 2.5 months, respectively. Median progression-free survival was also improved in patients who had less than 3% body weight loss. Similar findings were observed in a univariate and multivariate analysis.

As such, the data suggest that body weight loss is a good prognostic and predictive factor for OS in patients with previously treated, metastatic gastric/GEJ cancer who were treated on the TAGS trial and had available body weight loss data, concludes Ghidini.