Yelena Y. Janjigian, MD, Reviews MSI as a Biomarker in for Localized Gastric Cancer

Video

Yelena Y. Janjigian, MD, spoke about which biomarkers were most predictive for treatment of localized gastric cancer.

At the 2022 International Gastric Cancer Conference, Yelena Y. Janjigian, MD, chief of Gastrointestinal Oncology Service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, spoke with CancerNetwork® about microsatellite instability (MSI) as a biomarker for patients with localized gastric cancer and how it may be effective when deciding on treatment options.

Transcript:

For localized therapy, the most important biomarker that we could check—and it’s critical, even though that’s a rare biomarker—is microsatellite instability, or the MSI-high population. We know that these patients tend to do very well perhaps with surgery alone or even potentially with immunotherapy and then surgery. We also know, definitively, that immunotherapy is important in those patients with stage IV disease. Whether it will have a definitive foothold in the perioperative setting is still to be determined. What we also know is that those patients’ tumors tend to be chemotherapy resistant. You may harm your patient, as a surgeon, if you don’t know what their MSI status is, and then refer them to preoperative therapy. Data from the MAGIC study shows that peri-operative [epirubicin-based] therapy harms those patients. There are plenty of data to suggest that immunotherapy helps, but chemotherapy probably harms or is neutral. There’s a suggestion that chemotherapy in adjuvant setting may be neutral, but in the preoperative setting it’s harmful.

Reference

Cunningham D, Allum WH, Stenning SP, et al. Perioperative chemotherapy versus surgery alone for resectable gastroesophageal cancer. N Engl J Med. 2006;355(1):11-20. doi:10.1056/NEJMoa055531

Recent Videos
Earlier treatment with daratumumab may be better tolerated for patients with pretreated MRD-negative multiple myeloma.
The trispecific antibody JNJ-5322 demonstrated superior efficacy vs approved agents in multiple myeloma in results shared at the 2025 EHA Congress.
Despite CD19 CAR T-cell therapy exhibiting efficacy in patients with relapsed/refractory large B-cell lymphoma, less than half achieve long-term remission.
Current findings from the phase 1/2 CaDAnCe-101 trial show no predictive factors of improved responses with BGB-16673 in patients with CLL or SLL.
According to Benjamin Golas, MD, PIPAC is emerging as minimally invasive laparoscopic approach for patients with peritoneal carcinomatosis.
According to Ronan J. Kelly, deciding whether to give nivolumab- or durvalumab-based regimens in gastric cancers may rely on a patient’s frailty.
Five-year follow-up revealed that patients treated with nivolumab vs placebo in the phase 3 CheckMate 577 trial experienced a “doubling” of survival.
Patients treated with nivolumab in the phase 3 CheckMate 577 trial were less likely to experience progression-related treatment discontinuation vs placebo.
Related Content