Dr Thomas George speaks to ecancer as part of ASCO GI 2023 on the long-term results from the phase II NRG-GI002 trial platform.

This platform study evaluated the use of total neoadjuvant therapy in locally advanced rectal cancer.

Dr George explains that patients were randomised to neoadjuvant FOLFOX followed by chemoRT followed by surgery 8-12 weeks later with experimental arm 1 adding veliparib and experimental arm 2 adding pembrolizumab.

He reports that there were no statistically different improvements with the addition of veliparib or pembrolizumab in comparison to the control arm.