Photo Credit: Mohammed Elamine

The following is a summary of “Fruquintinib Combined With PD-1 Inhibitors for the Treatment of the Patients With Microsatellite Stability Metastatic Colorectal Cancer: Real-world Data,” published in the November 2024 issue of Oncology by He et al.    

People with microsatellite stable (MSS) metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) often have limited responses to programmed death-1 (PD-1) inhibitors. Combining PD-1 inhibitors with anti-angiogenesis treatments, like fruquintinib, could help improve the immune response.  

Researchers conducted a retrospective study to evaluate the clinical efficacy and safety of fruquintinib combined with PD-1 inhibitors in individuals with MSS mCRC.  

They involved 77 people with MSS mCRC who were treated with fruquintinib and PD-1 inhibitors (May 2019 and March 2023).  

The results showed that 5.2% (4/77) of individuals achieved partial response (PR), while 50.6% (39/77) had stable disease (SD), and 3 lesions achieving PR were lung metastases. The disease control rate (DCR) was 55.8% (43/77). Median progression-free survival (PFS) was 5.1 months (95% CI: 3.6-6.7), and median OS was 14.6 months (95% CI: 9.6-15.6). Multivariate Cox analysis found that prior treatment without vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) inhibitors was significantly associated with improved PFS and OS (P<0.05). Myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs) significantly decreased after treatment (P=0.039), especially in the PR/SD group (P=0.003). The most common side effects were abdominal pain, rash, edema, diarrhea, and hypothyroidism, all of which were manageable.  

They concluded that combining fruquintinib with PD-1 inhibitors may benefit people with MSS mCRC, particularly those with lung metastases or without prior treatment with VEGF inhibitors.  

Source: sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0936655524004990