Palliative interventions for patients with advanced gastric cancer: a systematic review

Gastric cancer is the fifth most common cancer and the third leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide. Advanced gastric cancer (AGC) is associated with significant morbidity and mortality and is commonly accompanied by a variety of distressing symptoms. Current National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) guidelines recommend palliative treatment modalities for patients with AGC and the treatment of AGC patients should be influenced by palliative care principles. The objective of this systematic review was to explore the published literature on palliative interventions for patients with AGC.

We performed a systematic literature search to identify English language studies that investigated interventions to improve or treat the symptoms caused by AGC using PubMed, Embase, and Cochrane Library databases from January 1, 2010 to August 18, 2022. Two independent reviewers performed title and abstract review, followed by full-text review and data abstraction. Overall study quality and risk of bias was assessed using published quality assessment tools.

We identified 10,364 studies and included 66 studies published between 2010 and 2022 for final review. Among the studies, quality of life (QoL) metrics were most commonly a secondary outcome. Twenty-three studies addressed the palliative management of bleeding with the use of radiation therapy, surgery, arterial embolization, chemotherapy, or endoscopic interventions. Twenty-two studies addressed the management of obstructive symptoms with endoscopic stenting or surgical interventions. Most of these studies were of moderate quality and included well characterized outcomes focused on symptom reduction. Five studies assessed palliative modalities to reduce the symptomatic burden of intraabdominal ascites; these studies were less well characterized, and on average low quality. Fifteen studies of mixed quality assessed QoL for patients with AGC, with only one study evaluating specialty palliative care consultation. No studies outlined the prevalence or practices of advanced care planning in this patient population.

Patients with AGC undergo a variety of interventions aimed at palliating the symptoms associated with their diagnosis and improving their QoL. Future research on palliative interventions for patients with AGC should utilize qualitative methodologies to measure outcomes related to symptom management and QoL, further explore the patient experience of living with AGC, and delineate best practices for advanced care planning in this population.