At the ASCO 2025 congress which took place in Chicago in early June, Dr Violaine Randrian, MCU-Ph in hepato-gastroenterology, presented his research, carried out in collaboration with Dr Benoît Rousseau and Dr. Zsofia Stadler during his international mobility at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer in New York, Diaz who developed the first indications for immunotherapy in colorectal cancer.
The study was carried out on 134 patients with advanced cancer, all genetically sequenced and linked to Lynch syndrome. It is a genetic disease that considerably increases the risk of developing certain types of cancer, especially colorectal and endometrial. Immunotherapy, by stimulating the body’s own immune defenses, has become an essential processing approach for these cancers with multiple changes.
The results are eloquent: an overall objective response rate of 58 %, including 35 % full responses, has been observed. The precise characterization by molecular biology (MSI status) was the factor which best predicted the response to treatment, including better than the responsible mutation of Lynch syndrome or immunohistochemistry (MMR status). In the event of discrepancy between the different techniques, the response to immunotherapy was lower.
These discoveries encourage the systematic characterization of tumors by the different techniques available for all patients with advanced cancer linked to Lynch syndrome. At the CHU de Poitiers, (this is not the case all over the world) this information is available for these patients thanks to the determination of Pr David Tougeron, gastroenterologist, combined with the involvement of the Anatomopathology laboratory and the Biological Cancer Laboratory. They allow medical teams to better predict the effectiveness of immunotherapy and to adapt treatment strategies.
The international mobility of Dr Violaine Randrian was made possible thanks to the financial support of several organizations, including the University and the CHU de Poitiers.
Share the publication “Immunotherapy and Lynch syndrome: an advance for patients with advanced cancer”
