The National Cancer Center Research Institute has announced that it has identified abnormalities in genes that are targeted for treatment in "skills gastric cancer," which is considered difficult to treat.
Since there are already drugs that are considered to be effective, we would like to proceed with research to confirm the effects by administering them to actual patients in the future.
Scirrhous gastric cancer is one of the difficult cancers to treat, with a 5-year survival rate of about 10%, which is often difficult to treat at the time of detection.
A group led by Hiroyuki Mano, director of the National Cancer Center Research Institute, said that about 100 patients with scirrhous gastric cancer whose cancer had spread to the "peritoneum" that covers the internal organs had a fluid called "ascites" that had accumulated in their stomachs. The cells were taken out and their genes were analyzed.
As a result, we succeeded in identifying many genetic abnormalities characteristic of scirrhous gastric cancer.
In some cancers, if there is a characteristic genetic abnormality, a type of drug called a "molecular-targeted drug" that targets the proteins that appear due to it is effective, and further investigation revealed that four-quarters of all patients The first is that there was a genetic abnormality that could be expected to be effective.
In addition, in experiments using mice with scirrhous gastric cancer, existing drugs were also effective, and the research group says that it may be possible to develop effective drugs for patients.
Mr. Mano says, "I hope that it will lead to research that will be administered to actual patients within a year to confirm the effect."