Optimizing outcomes for patients with gastric cancer peritoneal carcinomatosis

Peritoneal carcinomatosis (PC) from gastric cancer has traditionally been considered a terminal progression of the disease and is associated with poor survival out-comes. Positive peritoneal cytology similarly worsens the survival of patients with gastric cancer and treatment options for these patients have been limited. Recent ad-vances in multimodality treatment regimens have led to innovative ways to care for and treat patients with this disease burden. One of these advances has been to use neoadjuvant therapy to try and convert patients with positivecytologyorlow-volume PC to negative cytolo-gy with no evidence of active peritoneal disease.These strategies include the use of neoadjuvant systemic chemotherapy alone,using neoadjuvant laparoscopic heated intraper itoneal chemotherapy(NLHIPEC)after systemic chemotherapy,or using neoadjuvant intra-peritoneal and systemic chemother apy(NIPS)in a bi-dir ectional manner. For patients with higher volume PC,cytoreductive surgery (CRS) and hyperthermic intrape-ritoneal chemotherapy(HIPEC)have been mainstays of treatment. When used together, CRS and HIPEC can improve overall outcomes in properly selected patients,but overall survival outcomes remain unacceptably low.The extent of peritoneal disease, commonly measured by the peritoneal carcinomatosis index (PCI), and the com-pleteness of cytor eduction,has been shown to greatly impact outcomes in patients undergoing CRS and HIPEC.The uses of NLHIPEC and NLHIPEC plus NIPS have both been shown to decrease the PCI and thus increase the opportunity for complete cytoreduction. Newer therapies like pressurized intraperitoneal aerosol chemother apy and immunotherapy, such as catumaxomab, along with improved systemic chemotherapeutic regimens, are being explored with great interest.There is exciting progress being made in the management of PC from gastric can-cer and its’ treatment is no longer futile.