Dr. Hochster on Treatment Considerations for HER2+ Gastric Cancer

Howard S. Hochster, MD, FACP, associate director of clinical research and director of gastrointestinal oncology at Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey, director of oncology research for RWJBarnabas Health, and attending physician at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, discusses treatment considerations for patients with HER2-positive gastric cancer.

Various therapeutic options are currently available for patients with gastric cancer. Determining whether a patient has HER2 overexpression is important, even though its presence is less common in gastric cancer compared with breast cancer, according to Hochster. For these patients, anti-HER2 drugs can be utilized either as monotherapies or in combination with other agents, Hochster says.

Immunotherapy has become part of the paradigm for use in either the first-line or maintenance setting in patients with gastric cancer, Hochster adds. Patients who have high PD-1 expression can derive a good deal of benefit from immunotherapy, Hochster concludes.