New publications
Combination therapy improves survival in advanced bowel cancer
Last reviewed: 02.07.2025
All iLive content is medically reviewed or fact checked to ensure as much factual accuracy as possible.
We have strict sourcing guidelines and only link to reputable media sites, academic research institutions and, whenever possible, medically peer reviewed studies. Note that the numbers in parentheses ([1], [2], etc.) are clickable links to these studies.
If you feel that any of our content is inaccurate, out-of-date, or otherwise questionable, please select it and press Ctrl + Enter.
People battling advanced colon cancer may have a new treatment option that could extend their survival, a new study suggests. The findings were presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Chicago and should be considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.
The combination of two experimental immunotherapy drugs plus standard chemotherapy resulted in a median survival of 19.7 months in patients, compared with a median of 9.5 months in those who received only a targeted therapy called regorafenib.
"These findings pave the way for further study of this promising treatment approach," said first author Zev Weinberg, MD, PhD, co-director of the UCLA Health GI Oncology Program and an investigator at the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center at UCLA Health.
Two experimental immunotherapy drugs are etrumadenan and zimberelimab, which activate the immune system to target cancer cells. Both drugs are being developed by Arcus Biosciences.
According to the American Cancer Society, in 2024, Americans will be diagnosed with about 106,590 new cases of colon cancer, and about 53,010 people will die from the disease. It is the third leading cause of cancer death among men and the fourth leading cause of cancer death among women.
Early diagnosis of any cancer is the key to its control, as cancers that have spread are much more difficult to treat.
The new study included 112 patients with metastatic colorectal cancer who had already undergone chemotherapy (regimens containing oxaliplatin and irinotecan).
These patients were randomly divided into two groups. Seventy-five received the combination of EZFB: etrumadenan/zimberelimab plus standard chemotherapy (called mFOLFOX-6 plus bevacizumab), and the remaining 37 received the targeted therapy regorafenib alone.
According to Cancer Research UK, regorafenib is a type of targeted cancer drug called a cancer cell growth inhibitor. It works by interrupting the signals cancer cells need to grow and also prevents these cells from forming new blood vessels.
In the study, the combination therapy nearly doubled patients' overall survival compared with regorafenib and significantly improved "progression-free survival," which is the time without further cancer growth.
Progression-free survival with combination therapy was 6.2 months, compared with 2.1 months for those who received the targeted therapy alone, the researchers reported.
Finally, "treatment with the new combination therapy partially or completely shrank tumors in 17.3% of patients," according to a UCLA press release. "For patients treated with regorafenib alone, tumor shrinkage was seen in 2.7%."
"The improvement in both progression-free survival and overall survival with the EZFB combination represents a significant advance in the treatment of refractory metastatic colorectal cancer," Weinberg said in a UCLA news release.
The combination regimen had an "acceptable safety profile," with side effects roughly equivalent to those experienced by patients receiving standard chemotherapy, Weinberg and colleagues noted.