Onkológia 1/2018

Treatment metastatic gastric cancer

Gastric cancer is the third most common cause of cancer death wordwide. Chemotherapy has been shown to prolong survival compared with best supportive care. Target therapy may offer new possibilities for the treatment of gastric cancer. Trastuzumab monoclonal HER2 antibody used in combination with chemotherapy versus chemotherapy alone, demonstrated a significant increase in overall survival in HER2 positive patients treated in first line therapy. Ramucirumab, a fully humanized monoclonoal antibody against VEGFR-2, also enterd into clinical practice and is effective in second-line gastric cancer given either alone or in combination with paclitaxel. At last, cancer immunotherapy has come of age, now. It seems that it will be the last modality in the treatment of cancer.

Keywords: gastric cancer, chemotherapy, targeted therapy, immunotherapy