Medical therapy uses medicines (drugs or other substances) to kill cancer cells, or to slow or prevent their growth, and may be used before or after surgery and other treatments. Most medical treatments are called systemic therapies because the drugs travel throughout the body via the blood to attack cancer cells.
Medical therapies for stomach cancer include several different types of drugs, such as chemotherapy, targeted therapy and immunotherapy:
- Chemotherapy. Chemotherapy kills cancer cells by interrupting and preventing rapidly dividing cells (like cancer cells) from multiplying. Drugs used in chemotherapy may be taken orally, injected or infused into the bloodstream by IV.
- Targeted therapy. Because each person’s tumor is genetically different from another’s, these differences can translate to one patient responding to treatment while another does not. Targeted therapies home in on a specific or unique feature or characteristic of the cancer cell — such as a gene mutation or a protein, such as HER2 or PD-L1 — to block its growth and spread. Because targeted therapies aim for the characteristic found only on the cancer cells, they often spare more normal cells, presenting fewer side effects. An example of a targeted therapy for stomach cancer is trastuzumab (Herceptin) which targets over expression of HER2.
- Immunotherapy. This class of drugs aims to boost the body’s immune system to fight the cancer. Some of the immunotherapies for stomach cancer are a type of targeted therapy that by manipulating the target, the body’s immune cells can better find and attack the cancer cells. Examples of immunotherapies for stomach cancer include nivolumab (Opdivo) which targets PD-L1 and pembrolizumab (Keytruda) that targets certain DNA mutations.
- Chemoradiation. Because chemotherapy can make cancer cells more sensitive to radiation therapy, chemoradiation delivers chemotherapy and radiation therapy on the same day, or same time.