New Directions in Treatment for Patients With GIST

The treatment landscape for patients who experience progression after initial therapy for soft tissue sarcomas continues to evolve, according to Dr. Vinayak Venkataraman, medical oncologist.

Venkataraman sat down with CURE to discuss emerging second- and third-line therapeutic strategies and investigational agents that may shift the standard of care for patients with the rare sarcoma known as gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST).

He currently serves as the director of Sarcoma Pathways and is a physician at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, in Boston, Massachusetts, where is also an instructor in medicine and an affiliated faculty at the McGraw/Patterson Center for Population Sciences, Harvard Medical School.

Transcript

Can you discuss emerging second- and third-line treatment approaches in development for patients who have progressed after initial therapy, and which investigational agents or combinations you believe show the most promise at this time?

There's another novel compound called IDRX-42 which was tested in a heavily pretreated population, including in the second line, where it had a very encouraging objective response rate in that heavily pretreated population and almost a 50% response rate in the second line. That was presented at our Connective Tissue Oncology Society meeting last year in San Diego, and based on those results of how well patients were doing on the second line, we're going to be part of a large multicenter trial looking at Sutent (sunitinib) versus IDRX-42 in that second-line population.

Again, these are two potential novel compounds or novel combinations that could potentially change our standard of care in the second and third line of treatment. So those are the ones we're most excited about.

Additionally, there are some phase 1 trials looking at the combination of Gleevec (imatinib) and a menin inhibitor, because biologically in the lab, there's been some synergy seen in patients who have progressed on Gleevec on its own. Additionally, then are some pan-KIT inhibitors coming out that are also in clinical trial.

Transcript has been edited for clarity and conciseness.

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