Grant Recipient Investigates New Approaches to Treatment-Resistant Complication

“Once these patients develop ascites, they have very poor outcomes,” she explains. “Immunotherapy, which involves reprogramming a patient’s immune system to properly attack the tumor, has not been working well for patients with ascites, so we need to design better treatment solutions for these cases.”

Her current research has three major investigative aims: improving overall understanding of the biology of ascites, identifying two to three therapeutic targets for future clinical testing, and testing on potential targets using patient-derived models. While currently in the stage of early investigation, her research lays the foundation for future clinical trials on treatments for this subset of gastric cancer patients. 

Here is some of the latest in treatment therapy research for gastric cancer:

Meaningful results from a phase 2 study of Enhertu and T-DXd for patients with HER2-positive gastric cancer support the use of the combo as a second-line treatment, said Dr. Geoffrey Ku of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

A research team led by The Wistar Institute found that the chemotherapy drug decitabine disrupts two gastric cell lines associated with Epstein-Barr, a virus that’s associated with 10% of human gastric carcinomas.