What are the chemotherapy treatments for gastric cancer liver metastasis

Gastric cancer is a common malignant tumor that is difficult to treat, especially in the later stages when it is prone to metastasis. Common sites of metastasis include the liver. Depending on the patient's condition and the purpose of treatment, palliative chemotherapy or chemotherapeutic treatment may be considered.

Palliative chemotherapy

Palliative chemotherapy plays an important role in chemotherapy for gastric cancer liver metastasis. The emergence of many new drugs, such as the third-generation platinum derivative oxaliplatin, paclitaxel, and pemetrexed, provides a more effective and safe option for the treatment of advanced gastric cancer. It is mainly aimed at those patients with large metastatic lesions that cannot be surgically removed and for whom general chemotherapy cannot improve the condition. Instead, it will cause greater pain to patients due to side effects. Its purpose is to improve the quality of life of patients.

General chemotherapy

Preoperative chemotherapy: In addition to palliative chemotherapy, preoperative chemotherapy is also important for the treatment of gastric cancer liver metastasis. Its role is to kill or inhibit the growth of the tumor through chemotherapy to reduce the lesion, thereby effectively improving the resection rate of liver metastases. This is because generally few gastric cancer patients can undergo direct surgical resection after liver metastasis, and some patients can only undergo resection after chemotherapy.

Postoperative adjuvant chemotherapy: The reason for postoperative adjuvant chemotherapy is that liver metastases of gastric cancer may recur after resection. Chemotherapy can effectively kill the remaining cancer cells during the operation, thereby preventing their recurrence.

Tips: Why intravenous administration is not suitable for the treatment of gastric cancer liver metastasis

For patients with gastric cancer liver metastasis, intravenous medication is generally not used. Instead, hepatic artery perfusion and hepatic artery embolization chemotherapy are used. This is because the local drug concentration in the hepatic artery is high, the short-term efficacy is good, and the patient's systemic adverse reactions are low, and the survival rate is high.