Cancer Treatment Today

Epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) is over-expressed in amany esophageal and gastric carcinomas. Pteintiall it can be targer for Erbitux*cetiximab) and there has been significant interest in targeting it. Unfortunately, it has not yet shown much progress. A phase II study showed minimal clinical activity of cetuximab.  A recent phase III trial, EXPAND (Erbitux in Combination With Xeloda and Cisplatin in Advanced Esophagogastric Cancer), involved

Stomach cancer is known to have amplification of the ErbB2 (HER2) gene and responds to the drug Herceptin, which used this pathwayto attach cacner cells . Recently, there has been an interest in using Tyker(lapatinib) which is a drug that utalizes the same mechanism of action as Herceptin. One such trial is: LOGiC - Lapatinib Optimization Study in ErbB2 (HER2) Positive Gastric Cancer: A Phase III Global, Blinded Study Designed to Evaluate Clinical

Results from several randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trials for patients with primary gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST), a type of tumor usually found in the stomach or small intestine, showed that patients who received imatinib mesylate (Gleevec ®) after complete removal of their tumor were significantly less likely to have a recurrence of their cancer compared to those who did not receive imatinib. For example,  ACOSOG Z9001 trial

A small proportion of colon and rectal cancers arise in individuals who have genetic mutations. Familial Adenomatous Polyposis(FAP) and AFAP are autosomal dominant disorders with 50% risk of inheritance and about 75–80% of individuals with these conditions have an affected parent. Autosomal dominant inheritance means that an offspring of an affected individual has a 50% risk of inheriting the altered APC gene. Adenomas develop in approximately

Gatrointestinal junction(GE) cancer (where esophagus and stomach meet) is a type of cancer that has similarities to both gastric and esophageal cancer. Since GE Junctions cancers that express HER turned out to respond well to Herceptin, there is great interest in targeting other molecules, such as the epidermal growth factor receptor, vascular endothelial growth factor receptor, and P13k/Akt/mTor pathway, as well as the insulin-like growth factor

22% of patients with advanced gastric cancer overexpress human epidermal growth-factor receptor 2 (HER2), and these patients had significantly improved overall survival when trastuzumab (Herceptin), a drug against this receptor,  is added to chemotherapy when compared with chemotherapy alone. In a study presented in 2009 ASCO, the improvement in overall survival was 2.7 months, from 11.1 months in the chemotherapy group to 13.8 months in the trastuzumab