Maria Maddalena Laterza, Medical Oncologist at Ospedale Santa Maria delle Grazie, shared a post on LinkedIn:
“Excited to be presenting our poster today at ESMO GI 2026!
It is a privilege to share our real-world experience on the impact of failing to reach surgery after neoadjuvant therapy in patients with localized gastric and gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma.
In our single-center cohort of 96 consecutive patients treated between 2018 and 2024:
- 86.5% successfully proceeded to surgery, while 13.5% did not complete the planned curative treatment pathway.
- Among patients who underwent surgery, the R0 resection rate was 74.7%.
- Reaching surgery translated into better outcomes, with a median progression-free survival of 14.6 vs 11.8 months and a median overall survival of 43.5 vs 34.6 months compared with patients who did not undergo surgery.
- Disease progression was the most frequent reason for failure to proceed to surgery.
These findings remind us that, even in the era of multimodal treatment, completing the curative pathway remains a major challenge for a subset of patients. Better patient selection, closer monitoring, and optimized multidisciplinary care are essential to maximize the chance of reaching surgery and improving long-term outcomes.
I’m grateful to all my colleagues and collaborators who contributed to this work, and I look forward to discussing our results with the GI oncology community throughout the meeting.”
Other articles about ESMO GI 2026 on OncoDaily.
