Dr. Venook on Advice for Oncologists Treating Patients With CRC

Alan P. Venook, MD, The Madden Family Distinguished Professor of Medical Oncology and Translational Research at the University of California, San Francisco Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, provides advice to community oncologists who are treating patients with colorectal cancer (CRC).

As a community oncologist gets busier in his practice, it becomes even more important to not use a one-size-fits-all approach, Venook explains. It is critical to distinguish which patients are potentially curable and which are not. It is also beneficial to utilize biomarkers and to prepare for treatment.

For patients with BRAF mutations and are of RAS wild-type, a large majority of them have a poor prognosis. Therefore, it is likely more effective to enroll them on a clinical trial as opposed to standard therapy. Though there are plenty of subsets that have not yet been heavily researched, there are enough to work with to utilize a treatment-based approach.