He agreed with an attendee that recruiting patients with esophageal and gastroesophageal cancer to randomized trials has been difficult in the past and it might therefore take many years to obtain important biomarker data. But adaptive trial designs are addressing this issue.
"I think we are incorporating now more technologies with the design, which may be more flexible to adapt new findings so that we are not stuck for the next 3 or 5 years to a trial because of low accrual," he said.
Dr. Bohanes reported that he had no relevant conflicts of interest. Dr. Lenz reported having relationships with Response Genetics Inc. and with Sanofi-Aventis, manufacturer of oxaliplatin (Eloxatin).