The goal of this study was to test the effect of HIPEC (Hyperthermic Intraperitoneal Chemotherapy) on survival and postoperative outcomes after complete cytroreductive surgery compared with resection alone. At 3 years, HIPEC significantly improved overall survival with almost 26% of patients alive at 3 years compared with 13% of patients in the surgery alone group. The median overall survival was 18.8 months for patients treated with HIPEC compared to 12.1 months for surgery alone. Survival results at 5 years were consistent. About 20% of patients were still alive at 5 years, and 15% of patients were considered cured by HIPEC. In conclusion, cytoreductive surgery plus HIPEC improved overall survival compared with resection alone for patients with gastric cancer with peritoneal carcinomatosis.
Clinical Trials Information
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Gastrointestinal toxicity is common during cancer therapy, and most treatment options are not helpful for the majority of patients. A recent study using a mixture of amino acids show decreases in mucositis and gastrointestinal toxicity following irradiation. This study was conducted in order to evaluate how the amino acid-based beverage benefited cancer patients receiving chemotherapy and/or radiation therapy. The use of the beverage was shown to reduce gastrointestinal toxicity in patients undergoing cancer treatment. There will be additional clinical studies to further effects of how this medical food to evaluate the benefits.
Medical marijuana can exist in a variety of formulations such as dried flowers, resins, extracts and oils. It’s legalization and use for medical purposes is still a developing issue and the perspectives of many health care providers is also following the same path. Medical marijuana can be used to ease chronic pain, chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting (CINV), sleeping disorders and certain anticancer agents. Overall, the evolution of medical marijuana is a conflict-ridden issue, but its efficacy has demonstrated as a possible method of treatment for a variety of conditions.
DDF’s Scientific and Medical Advisory Board Chair, David Ilson, MD, PhD, explains that when it comes to a patient with metastatic disease molecular testing does have an impact on choices of therapy. More specifically HER2 testing is a common in patients with metastatic disease. If a patient is HER2-positive, then trastuzumab is included as part of the chemotherapy for that patient. Moreover, for metastatic patients, physicians also consider microsatellite instability testing, DNA mismatch repair protein testing, or PD-L1 testing given as how the outcome of these tests may influence treatment. When a young patient under the age of 50 is diagnosed with gastric cancer, it is prudent to think about CDH1 or hereditary diffuse gastric cancer. Genetic testing is used for these types of patients and it is commonly found that heritable mutations are not present unless there is a family history of gastric cancer in their families. Genetic testing is more commonly used in younger patients than in older patients, nevertheless, in very rare occasions that heritable mutations are found.
Genetic Testing
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A recent study found that a dendritic cell (DC) vaccine administered with chemotherapy was safe and effective for gastric cancer treatment. 28 patients with refractory or advanced gastric cancer were treated with a DC vaccine every 2 weeks for a total of 7 doses while also undergoing chemotherapy. The results showed two partial response cases, seven patients maintained stable disease, and 11 patients developed disease progression. During a follow-up after a median of 10.3 months, the median overall survival from the date of first vaccination was 10.5 months. Overall survival was longer among patients who experienced a partial response or stable disease (26.3 months) than patients who did not respond to treatment {6.4 months). Differences among various types of immune cell frequencies were noted between the responding and not responding patients. The therapy was well tolerated by patients with no serious adverse effects, except for hematologic toxicities.
Clinical Trials
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According to a recent study, TAS-102 (trifluridine/tipiracil; Lonsurf) provided a 31% reduction in the risk of death for patients with heavily pretreated metastatic or advanced gastric cancer that received the drug compared to patients who received a placebo. The median overall survival time was 5.7 months for patients who received TAS-102 compared with 3.6 months for patients that received the placebo. 21.2% patients survived a year following treatment compared with 13.0% of patients that received the placebo. Studies on the efficacy and safety of TAS-102 revealed that TAS-102 has a predictable and manageable safety profile.
Treatment Options
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In gastric cancer, results from a FLOT4 clinical trial suggest that the FLOT (fluorouracil/leucovorin, oxaliplatin, and docetaxel [Taxotere]) regimen should be the primary adjuvant treatment in gastric cancer over epirubicin/cisplatin/fluorouracil (ECF) or epirubicin/cisplatin/oxaliplatin (ECX). The trial showed that overall survival was longer for patients assigned to FLOT compared with ECF/ ECX (50 vs 35 months) and are predicted to be more effective for survival long term. Side effects like infections, diarrhea, and neutropenia took place more frequently with FLOT arm but patients receiving ECF/ECX had higher rates of vomiting and nausea. The 2 groups had nearly the same rates of serious adverse events and toxic deaths.
Treatment Options
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A study found that endoscopic surveillance can detect gastric cancer at an early curable stage. 279 patients (previous diagnosed with either atrophic gastritis, intestinal metaplasia, or dysplasia) underwent at least one surveillance endoscopy. 84% of the patients were Caucasian. The first surveillance endoscopy was conducted after a mean interval of 35 months with a mean of 2.9 endoscopies per patient. 26% of patients were found to be infected with Helicobacter pylori. Surveillance also helped the diagnosis of 4% of patients with atrophic gastritis, 87% with intestinal metaplasia, and 9% with dysplasia. Four participants were detected to have high-grade adenoma/dysplasia or invasive neoplasia over a mean follow-up of 57 months. Two of these patients were treated successfully with endoscopic submucosal dissection; the other two patients went through total gastrectomy. However, it is reported that examination of tissues is not enough to discriminate between low-risk and high-risk cancer patients. Serological tests are noninvasive and could help identify risk levels while reducing the dependence on endoscopic resources. Gastric and oral gastric microbes can help diagnose stomach cancer and its precursors less invasively as well.
Symptoms, Screening & Early Detection
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Diabetes is the main cause of cancer-unrelated mortality among cancer survivors. Numerous studies have suggested that diabetes increases risk for developing cancer. A recent South Korean study found that having cancer itself also increases risk for developing diabetes. Researchers followed 494,189 patients between ages 20 and 70 without diabetes and cancer for a median of seven years. A follow-up revealed that 15,130 people developed cancer and 26,610 developed diabetes over time. Based on the results, it can be said that at any given time, 1.35X as many stomach cancer patients will develop diabetes compared to people without cancer. In general, cancer patients develop other clinical problems more frequently than non-cancer patients. Thus, routine diabetes screening should be conducted among stomach cancer patients.
Risk Factors
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Two studies have suggested that successful gene editing with CRISPR Cas9 (to cure genetic diseases) may be associated with an increased risk of developing cancer. This is because the edit may indicate that the modified cell lacks the cancer-suppressing protein, p53. P53 acts as the body’s cellular “first aid” kit and also causes some CRISPR edits to fail. When CRISPR makes a cut in the DNA of a cell (to remove deleterious mutations), p53 can be triggered to repair the broken cell or make it self-destruct. When these incidences do not occur and genes are successfully edited, this suggests that p53 is not functioning properly in those edited cells. Since dysfunctional P53 causes significant stomach cancer risk, there are concerns that transplanting CRISPR edited cells into the body could lead to cancer. Other scientists argue that there’s no clear connection between CRISPR editing and potential cancer. For that to be true, CRISPR-edited cells intended for transplantation have to be permanently lacking in p53, which has not been established. Also, these study results are based on cultured cells, which may act differently when transplanted back into the human body.
Genomics
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