Gertjan Rasschaert: Salvage surgery for unifocal metastatic dMMR GI cancer responding to ICI

Gertjan Rasschaert posted on LinkedIn about recent paper by him as co-author, titled “Salvage Surgery for Unifocal Progressive Metastatic Mismatch Repair–Deficient GI Cancer Responding to Immune Checkpoint Inhibition” published on Journal of Clinical Oncology.

Authors: Pieterjan Perremans, Filip Van Herpe, Gertjan Rasschaert, Johan Van Ongeval, Jochen Decaestecker, Baki Topal, Gabriele Bislenghi, Albert Wolthuis, Halit Topal, Christophe Deroose, Eric Van Cutsem, Jeroen Dekervel

“Salvage surgery for unifocal progressive metastatic dMMR GI cancer responding to ICI

Intersting new article in JCO Precision Oncology, ASCO, from our UZ Leuven / KU Leuven gastrointestinal oncology team.

In dMMR patients who do progress under immunotherapy (ICI), current guidelines advise to switch to conventional chemotherapy (CT). However, in case of progression at a limited number of sites, local therapies could provide an alternative approach. Besides dMMR disease is considered less sensitive to CT. In contrast to CT, ICI often leads to a pathological complete response in nonprogressive lesions, even if still visible on imaging. This supports the hypothesis that progressive lesions contain an ICI-resistant clone not necessarily present at all affected sites and thus suitable for local therapy if technically feasible.”

Gertjan Rasschaert is a Consultant Gastrointestinal Oncologist at UZ Leuven and a Guest lecturer at KU Leuven. Previously, he was a Medical Doctor at Amphia and Institut Jules Bordet.