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Updated: Nov 11, 2025

Author Spotlight: Advancing Early Detection and Treatment of Gastrointestinal Tumors
Published on: February 16, 2024
Maintenance in gastric cancer: New life for an old issue?
Giandomenico Roviello1, Maria Grazia Rodriquenz2, Giuseppe Aprile3
1Department of Health Sciences, Section of Clinical Pharmacology and Oncology, University of Florence, Viale Pieraccini, 6, 50139, Florence, Italy.
Abstract:
The interest in maintenance therapy for patients with advanced cancers has been rapidly growing. Maintenance therapy is a useful strategy that may strengthen results of induction therapy thus extending survival and preserving the quality of life (QoL) with less toxicity. Maintenance also represents a suitable setting to investigate novel agents. The value of maintenance therapy after first-line chemotherapy has been well established in several solid tumours, such as colorectal, lung, breast, and ovarian cancer in which it is largely adopted. To date, there is no established role for maintenance therapy following first-line chemotherapy for advanced gastric cancer (GC). This review summarizes the current knowledge regarding maintenance strategies in advanced GC exploring cytotoxic agents, biologic agents and immunotherapy. We also critically review new issues to optimize randomized clinical trials for maintenance therapies and suggest clinical consideration to guide a personalized approach in daily clinical practice for this setting.
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