Prolonged overall survival in metastatic gastric cancer treated with ipilimumab and lapatinib.

Objective: Gastric cancer is one of the most important common tumors in the world. It remains the second leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide. The prognosis of patients with unresectable or metastatic gastric cancer remains poor. New targeted drugs were evaluated in clinic, such as lapatinib. The potential for making beneficial progress is to investigate innovative therapeutic strategies, such as immunotherapy.

Methods: We used combination therapy including immunotherapy for treating gastric cancer. We treated a patient of metastatic gastric cancer for which lapatinib plus ipilimumab was effective after progression on trastuzumab.

Results: The patient has prolonged overall survival after treatment. Positron emission tomography-computed tomography examination showed that some of the cervical lymph nodes and retroperitoneal lymph nodes reduced and glucose metabolism decreased. In blood examination, the tumor marker (carcinoembryonic antigen) decreased. The patient has been lived for 4 years after multiple lymph node metastasis.

Conclusion: Targeted therapy combined with immunotherapy might be a useful option for metastatic gastric.