$AGEN On the latest episode of
#OncologyUnplugged 🔌, host Chandler Park, M.D., F.A.C.P., of Norton Cancer Insitute, sits down with Pashtoon Kasi, MD, MS, of City of Hope Orange County, to discuss what may be one of the most significant paradigm shifts in CRC management: moving immunotherapy up front.
Their conversation covers:
🔬 Why the high neoantigen load of dMMR/MSI-H tumors makes them so sensitive to checkpoint blockade
📊 The path from the phase 3 ATOMIC trial to the NICHE series, where a brief course of neoadjuvant nivolumab plus a single dose of ipilimumab produced near-universal responses
🧪 Dr Kasi's NEST trials of botensilimab plus balstilimab, which extended activity into the larger MSS population
🧬 Mechanistic insights, including an "inside-out" response pattern, regulatory T-cell depletion, and why an intact tumor and lymph nodes may matter
ctDNA as an emerging surrogate end point, the STELLAR-303 data in MSS diseaseliver metastases as an immunosuppressive niche