What’s New In the Diagnosis and Treatment of Stomach Cancer?

There have not been any major advances for patients with stomach cancer in recent years, but there are a number of important areas of research that have shown promise and progress in improving the outlook for patients with this disease. Advances have been made in the use of imaging techniques that allow for more precise staging of the disease, resulting in more tailored and effective treatments. Multidisciplinary approaches to treatment that combine surgery with pre- and post-operative radiation and chemotherapy have helped to increase the survival rate for patients with earlier, potentially curable stomach cancers. In the last several years, clinical trials have demonstrated encouraging results using therapies targeted to specific genetic mutations, including the use of Herceptin (trastuzumab) in HER2 positive advanced gastric cancer patients. Many new chemotherapeutic agents, vaccines, gene therapies, and targeted therapies are now being studied in clinical trials. Stomach cancer remains a difficult disease to treat, too often diagnosed in its late stages, but there is hope for a better future and we dream of a cure.

Sources for the Information on the Stomach Cancer 101 pages

• http://cancer.net
• http://oncolink.org
• http://mayoclinic.org
• NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines for Gastric Cancer
• Gastric Cancer: A Primer on the Epidemiology and Biology of the Disease and an Overview of the Medical Management of Advanced Disease, Manish A. Shah and David P. Kelsen, JNCCN, Vol.8, Number 4, April 2010
• Multimodality Approaches to Localized Gastric Cancer, Prajnan Da, Yixing Jiang, Jeffrey H. Lee, S. Bhutai, William A. Ross, Paul F. Mansfield, Jaffer A. Ajani, JNCCN, Vol. 8, Number 4, April, 2010
• Update on Gastric Cancer: Molecular Pathology and Targeted Therapies; Antonia R. Sepulveda, PhD.; USGIPS.com/documents