[Clinical experience with encorafenib and cetuximab in patients with BRAFV600E-mutant metastatic colorectal cancer after early relapse following adjuvant chemotherapy].

Abstract

Metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) is constituted of several biological subgroups characterized by molecular alterations activating specific proliferative pathways. These alterations have, for a long time, lacked targeted therapies capable of inactivating these signalling pathways and eventually modifying the course of the disease. This scenario has rapidly been evolving in recent years, thanks to a better understanding of mCRC biology and advances in drug development, that have turned these alternations into "actionable" targets. BRAFV600E is a landmark example of this process. Conceived for roughly a decade as a negative prognostic factor of outcome and as a predictor of resistance to anti-EGFRs, today it is also a predictor of response to the combination of the anti-BRAF encorafenib and of the anti-EGFR cetuximab, and a standard of care in patients with BRAFV600E-mutated mCRC, after failure of previous systemic therapy. In this work, we report three clinical scenarios where encorafenib and cetuximab are used in label as first-line of treatment, at the diagnosis of mCRC, after early relapse occurring at the end of adjuvant chemotherapy.