Daniel Catenacci, MD:Typically, at our center, despite having multiple regimens to choose from for first-line palliative therapy, we tend to use 2-drug regimen FOLFOX (oxaliplatin, 5-FU, folinic acid). This is an emerging preference across centers. Despite having many regimens that have similar outcomes, we prefer FOLFOX chemotherapy because it’s better tolerated with fewer side effects.
Three-drug regimens, typically we use very sparingly to palliate symptoms in a potentially very young patient with a very good performance status. But ultimately, the goal is to treat patients with our treatments in tandem. So, 2-drug treatments in tandem, rather than lumping everything up front and having a higher toxicity profile without much difference in overall survival.
This patient in this case had a response at the first assessment after 3 months of therapy. The response rate with FOLFOX chemotherapy is approximately 40%, so that’s not that surprising. Patients often have disease control but improved symptoms, whether it’s from dysphasia, if the primary tumor is located in the distal esophagus or GE junction, or like, in this patient, having mild abdominal pain, fatigue, etc. Many of these things get better with treatment and patients could still have stable disease on scans. Very few patients will progress after the first image after first-line therapy. Only about 5% to 10% of patients will have inherent resistance to first-line chemotherapy.
Transcript edited for clarity.
A 61-Year-Old Woman With Stage 4 Gastric Cancer
November 2017
January 2018
July 2018
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