Wanfang Hospital uses bidirectional & hyperthermic treatment regime to fight metastatic stomach cancer

Source: Taipei Medical University

Published on 2019-03-04

Many women suffering from continuing stomach pains, nausea or loss of appetite may want to be screened for diffuse gastric cancer.


This type of cancer is also known as linitis plastica, and it tends to occur in women and young adults. Recently Wanfang Hospital treated two such patients whose diagnoses showed diffuse gastric cancer with intraperitoneal metastases. Fortunately their conditions have improved following bidirectional chemotherapy combined with surgery and hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy.

Bidirectional chemotherapy is simultaneously using traditional general chemotherapy (to kill tumors in tissues) with intraperitoneal chemotherapy (to kill exposed tumors in
the abdominal cavity). Once conditions improve, cytoreduction surgery with hyperthermic intraperitoneal treatment is followed by bidirectional chemotherapy again. This staged approach offers results similar to eradication surgeries, with longer lives and good quality of life. Traditional treatments of gastric cancer with abdominal metastases that use general chemotherapy combined with surgery typically offer survival periods of less than a year due to high likelihood of relapse and metastasis.

Wanfang Hospital has provided bidirectional chemotherapy in conjunction with surgery and hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy to 21 gastric cancer patients with abdominal cavity metastases. The longest-surviving patient has reached 3 years with no sign of relapse, with the patient’s daily routine no different from those of healthy individuals.

Cancer Center Director Dr. Gi-Ming Lai (left), Surgical Director Dr. Mao-Chih Hsueh (middle) and Dr. Chang-Yun Lu of Wanfang Hospital with two patients