May 4, 2018, scientists from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) reported that an analysis of a prevention clinical trial, a two-drug combination, substantially decreased the number of precancerous colorectal polyps in people with a very high hereditary risk of developing colorectal cancer.

In the trial, people with this hereditary condition—called familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP)—who were randomly assigned to receive the combination of erlotinib (Tarceva) and sulindac (Aflodac) had less than a third the number of polyps after 6 months of treatment than patients who received placebos. The analysis was published in JAMA Oncology.