Page 268 - EJMO-9-1

Eurasian Journal of Medicine
and Oncology

LETTER TO EDITOR
Exploring the potential of new combination

therapy strategies in advanced gastric cancer

Jiajing Zheng and Xianbin Kong *
2
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1 Department of Traditional Chinese Medicine, College of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Tianjin
University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Tianjin, China
2 Tianjin Key Laboratory of Modern Chinese Medicine Theory of Innovation and Application, Tianjin
University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Tianjin, China

Dear Editor,
Gastric cancer (GC) ranks as the fifth most prevalent type of cancer worldwide and is
the fourth-leading cause of cancer-related fatalities, with most patients being diagnosed
when the malignancy has reached the late stage. Dealing with advanced GC (AGC)
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continues to be a serious challenge worldwide. At present, several targeted therapies
have been sanctioned for the management of GC. Trastuzumab is utilized as the first-line
treatment option for patients with HER2-positive GC. Ramucirumab serves as a second-
line therapy for anti-angiogenesis purposes. In addition, nivolumab or pembrolizumab
can be administered as a third-line treatment for patients who require anti-PD-1 therapy. 2
A recent research article on the efficacy of using nivolumab, ramucirumab,
and paclitaxel as second-line treatments for AGC. Research data shows that this
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combination therapy has a controlling effect on tumor progression in some patients,
and most of the side effects that occur during the treatment process can be controlled.
*Corresponding author: What is particularly prominent is that the efficacy of combination therapy does not differ
Xianbin Kong significantly among patients with different PD-L1 states. This provides a new treatment
(89kongxianbin@tjutcm.edu.cn)
option for patients with low PD-L1 expression levels. However, this research had a rather
Citation: Zheng J, Kong X. small sample size, consisting of merely 10 patients. Therefore, there is an urgent need
Exploring the potential of new
combination therapy strategies in for larger-scale, multicenter research to comprehensively validate the effectiveness and
advanced gastric cancer. Eurasian safety of this treatment regimen. In addition, to more accurately understand whether
J Med Oncol. 2025;9(1):260-262. this treatment has absolute advantages in terms of efficacy and tolerability compared
doi: 10.36922/ejmo.8594
to other alternative treatments, comparative studies with other treatment options are
Received: January 18, 2025 needed in the future.
Accepted: February 11, 2025 Another multicenter phase I/Ⅱ investigation also concentrated on the combination
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Published online: February 20, of nivolumab, paclitaxel, and ramucirumab as a second-line approach to treating AGC.
2025 The study design is more scientific, with a feasibility assessment conducted on six
Copyright: © 2025 Author(s). patients in the phase I study, followed by an addition of 37 patients in the phase Ⅱ study,
This is an Open-Access article with an expanded sample size for enhancing the reliability of findings obtained. The
distributed under the terms of the
Creative Commons Attribution study recommended drug dosages for safe usage and clarified events encountered upon
License, permitting distribution, dose-limiting toxicity, revealing hematological toxicity as the most prevalent treatment-
and reproduction in any medium, related adverse event. In addition, the frequency and grading of adverse events related to
provided the original work is
properly cited. the immune system are within a controllable range.
Publisher’s Note: AccScience In addition, recent studies have explored new drugs and therapies for the treatment
Publishing remains neutral with of GC. The results indicate that using nivolumab in tandem with oxaliplatin shows
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regard to jurisdictional claims in
published maps and institutional remarkable efficacy for tumors with PD-L1 CPS ≥5. Zolbetuximab combined with
affiliations. oxaliplatin can be used to treat tumors expressing high levels of claudin 18.2. Phase III

Volume 9 Issue 1 (2025) 260 doi: 10.36922/ejmo.8594