Later-Line Fruquintinib for Refractory Metastatic Colorectal Cancer

The benefit of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF)–targeted therapies — including bevacizumab, ramucirumab, aflibercept, and regorafenib — has been validated in early and later lines of therapy for patients with metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC).

To evaluate the later-line use of the oral VEGF tyrosine kinase inhibitor fruquintinib in this setting, investigators conducted an industry-sponsored, international, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, phase 3 trial (FRESCO-2) involving 691 heavily pretreated mCRC patients (most with left-sided/rectal and RAS-mutant tumors). Patients had disease progression on standard treatments, including chemotherapy, bevacizumab, EGFR-targeted therapy for RAS wild-type cancers, BRAFV600E-target…