Conference Coverage
New drug boosts survival in metastatic CRC
Key clinical point: TAS-102 treatment significantly boosted overall survival with good tolerability in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer...
MADRID – Results from a phase III trial of a new drug, TAS-102, that mimics the action of fluorouracil showed that it significantly boosted overall survival in heavily pretreated patients with metastatic colorectal cancer. This means that now two drugs, TAS-102 and regorafenib, have recently shown efficacy in this clinical setting, although the two drugs show notably different adverse-effect profiles, Dr. Christophe Tournigand said in an interview at the European Society for Medical Oncology Congress.
Another aspect when comparing these two new drugs is their ability to easily combine with other treatments. Regorafenib seems hard to combine. In contrast, the adverse-effect profile of TAS-102 suggests that it may be easier to use in combinations, said Dr. Tournigand, professor and head of medical oncology at Henri Mondor University Hospital in Créteil, France.
Dr. Tournigand has been an adviser to Roche, Sanofi, Merck, Amgen, and Bayer.