On July 22, a representative of the University of Medicine and Pharmacy Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City said that recently, doctors here received and treated a patient who was diagnosed with metastatic cancer at a very young age.
The patient is an 18-year-old girl (living in Dong Nai province) who was admitted to the hospital with prolonged abdominal pain, poor appetite, nausea and vomiting after eating, and a weight loss of 9kg in just 2-3 months. Previously, the patient had been diagnosed with gastritis by another medical facility.
At a hospital in Ho Chi Minh City, through endoscopy and biopsy, doctors discovered that the patient had diffuse gastric cancer (linitis plastica), the tumor invaded the pancreas, the transverse colon mesentery and metastasized to the abdominal peritoneum. This is a special case because gastric cancer usually occurs in people over 60 years old.
The girl discovered that her stomach cancer had metastasized when she was only 18 years old (Photo: Hospital).
Right from the time of admission, the treatment team including doctors from the Department of Gastroenterology, experts from the departments of Cancer Chemotherapy, Pathology, and Diagnostic Imaging consulted and developed a multi-modal treatment regimen, personalized according to the molecular biological characteristics of the patient's tumor.
The girl was tested for tumor cell receptor mutations, which were found to express PD-L1 receptors. Based on these results, the doctors prescribed the patient a combination of immunotherapy and systemic chemotherapy from the beginning.
After 6 treatment sessions lasting more than 4 months, the patient responded very well to the above regimen, the metastases reduced by 90% in size, the main tumor shrank significantly. The patient gained 10kg, improved physical condition and returned to almost normal activities.
When qualified, the treatment team performed surgery to remove the patient's entire stomach, remove lymph nodes, and biopsy the metastatic sites. The surgery was safe and successful. After surgery, the patient recovered quickly, ate, walked normally, and was discharged 7 days after surgery.
Postoperative pathology results showed that the patient responded almost completely, with only about 10% of malignant cells remaining in the main tumor, and the metastatic foci in the abdomen no longer had cancer cells.
In addition, surveys of gene mutations and circulating cancer DNA in the blood are also performed to provide personalized information for prognosis and treatment monitoring.
After treatment, the patient's health improved dramatically (Photo: Hospital).
Patients will continue to be closely monitored with advanced means and additional treatment (maintenance immunotherapy) will be considered to reduce the risk of relapse.
Associate Professor Vo Duy Long, Deputy Head of the Department of Digestive Surgery, shared that this case demonstrates the effectiveness of multimodal treatment and personalized medicine in advanced gastric cancer.
The doctor also warned that the above patient's discovery of stomach cancer at the age of 18 is a clear warning about the rejuvenating trend of this dangerous disease.
This highlights the urgent need for early screening and timely detection of the disease in the community. This helps to provide proper treatment, increasing the chance of recovery even with advanced cancer.
Since 2018, Ho Chi Minh City University of Medicine and Pharmacy Hospital has implemented multimodal treatment for more than 100 patients with advanced stomach cancer, combining chemotherapy, immunotherapy, targeted drugs and surgery, with a response rate of more than 50%.
This is a "spectacular" figure compared to the previous period, when metastatic stomach cancer was almost impossible to cure. Research data on the above treatment model was published in the European Journal of Surgical Oncology in early 2025.
Source: https://dantri.com.vn/suc-khoe/co-gai-18-tuoi-bat-ngo-phat-hien-ung-thu-da-day-di-can-xa-sau-4-trieu-chung-20250722105946616.htm
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