Gastric cancer treatment methods: radiotherapy and chemotherapy

When it comes to the treatment of gastric cancer, most people think of radiotherapy and chemotherapy. In fact, these two treatments for gastric cancer are mostly used in the middle and late stages of gastric cancer when surgical methods are not effective, and the side effects are relatively large.

There are many radiation complications, which may even cause partial functional loss. For patients with advanced tumors, the effect of radiotherapy is not perfect. At the same time, for patients with poor physical fitness and older age, continued radiotherapy can only make their weak lives more critical and accelerate the death of patients. Gastric adenocarcinoma has low radiosensitivity. After radiotherapy alone or combined with chemotherapy, only 60% of the tumors shrink by more than 50%, and only 10% of the tumors disappear completely. Therefore, radiotherapy alone cannot be used to cure gastric cancer. The role of radiotherapy in the treatment of gastric cancer is mainly auxiliary or palliative. It is often used for comprehensive treatment. The main forms of radiotherapy are preoperative radiotherapy, intraoperative radiotherapy, postoperative radiotherapy and palliative radiotherapy.

Except for a few patients, most patients need postoperative chemotherapy after gastric cancer resection. The reason is that there may be residual cancer cells after surgery, or some gastric cancer surgeries are difficult to completely remove, or there are metastatic lesions through the lymphatic or blood system. Practice has shown that compared with simple surgery, chemotherapy after gastric cancer surgery has a longer survival period and less postoperative recurrence. This is why doctors often arrange chemotherapy for patients before gastric cancer treatment surgery.

The above is a brief introduction to the two treatment methods for gastric cancer: radiotherapy and chemotherapy. I hope that through the introduction of this article, everyone will have a better understanding of the treatment methods for gastric cancer. You can also consult our online experts here to get more updated knowledge on the treatment of gastric cancer.