Dr. Hays on the Importance of Clinical Trials in CRC

John L. Hays, MD, PhD, assistant professor, the Department of Internal Medicine, the Ohio State University, member, the Translational Therapeutics Program, the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center - James Cancer Hospital, discusses the importance of clinical trials in colorectal cancer (CRC).

A key to advancing the treatment space in CRC is understanding how to deliver more effective treatment to patients in the frontline setting with the hope of curing more of them, Hays says. The emergence of HER2-targeted therapies for patients with CRC has shown that more tailored treatments can be delivered to different patients, and investigating more surgical and adjuvant strategies could lead to more cures, Hays explains.

For example, single-agent dostarlimab-gxly (Jemperli) elicited a clinical complete response rate of 100% with no evidence of residual tumor among 14 patients with stage II/III mismatch repair–deficient locally advanced rectal cancer treated on a phase 2 trial (NCT04165772), Hays adds.

Just as HER2-targeted agents have been developed, it will be important to further understand actionable targets in CRC and how targeted agents can represent better treatments options for patients in the recurrent setting, Hays concludes.