Tag Archive for: gastric cancer screening

How Does Gastric Cancer Screening Differ for High-Risk Groups?

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How Does Gastric Cancer Screening Differ for High-Risk Groups? from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

 Is gastric cancer screening different for some high-risk groups? Expert Dr. Jun Gong from Cedar-Sinai Medical Center shares how screening guidelines are evolving for some high-risk patient groups and advice to patients to ensure essential screening occurs.

[ACT]IVATION Tip

“…understanding whether you are in a specific high-risk subgroup it’s important to ask, whether diet and lifestyle can contribute to these risk factors are important to ask, and whether there is a risk of familial or hereditary causes of stomach cancer is important to ask as well. For us as oncologists to guide you to our supportive services and down the right path to address all of these concerns.”

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See More from [ACT]IVATED Gastric Cancer

Related Resources:

Addressing Elevated Gastric Cancer Risks in Asian and Hispanic Communities

 What Gastric Cancer Challenges Do Asian and Hispanic Groups Face?

 How Can Gastric Cancer Patients in Rural Areas Access Specialists?

Transcript:

Lisa:

Are there any screening tests that are recommended for anyone who might be in a group that’s known to have a higher incidence of gastric cancer?

Dr. Jun Gong:

Screening for stomach cancer in the U.S. is very evolving. It’s somewhat controversial. Unlike in East Asia and parts of the world where they’ve actually implemented standard endoscopic screening protocols as young as 40 or age 50. Here in the U.S., there hasn’t been any formal screening guidelines implemented for stomach cancer.

However, a lot of consensus groups recognize the high-risk subgroups of stomach cancer and in these risk factor, high-risk factor groups, especially if you have a family member a first-degree family member with stomach cancer or you’re a part of one of these ethnic groups that are at high risk, they do encourage screening to be discussed with your provider. And this can entail endoscopy surveillance as well.

So my activation tip regarding risk factors is to always inquire whether from your provider or from ancillary staff.  It’s very common for us to refer our patients as well to cancer nutritionists, dieticians as well, in addition to going over what may be some possible familial or hereditary risk, if we sense that a strong family history is present.

And this is where referrals to genetic counselors are available. But understanding whether you are in a specific high-risk subgroup it’s important to ask, whether diet and lifestyle can contribute to these risk factors are important to ask, and whether there is a risk of familial or hereditary causes of stomach cancer is important to ask as well. For us as oncologists to guide you to our supportive services and down the right path to address all of these concerns.

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Do Gastric Cancer Risk Factors Differ Among Hispanic Communities?

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Do Gastric Cancer Risk Factors Differ Among Hispanic Communities? from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

Are there gastric cancer risk factors that differ for Hispanic communities? Expert Dr. Jun Gong from Cedar-Sinai Medical Center discusses risk factors for Hispanic and other higher risk stomach cancer groups.

Download Resource Guide | Descargar guía de recursos

See More from [ACT]IVATED Gastric Cancer

Related Resources:

What Early Phase Gastric Cancer Trials Are Showing Promise?

 Expert Guidance: Stomach Cancer Basics for Newly Diagnosed Patients

 How Is Gastric Cancer Screening and Care Impacted by Culture?

Transcript:

Lisa:

Are there any specific risk factors for gastric cancer that are more prevalent in Hispanic communities compared to other ethnic groups?

Dr. Jun Gong:

So this is an interesting question in terms of risk factors and certain ethnic groups. We’ve realized that actually gastric cancer is highly prevalent in East Asia. And there, the risk factors seem to be more diet-related. But then when you look on the Western side of the world, it’s different risk factors that exist for stomach cancer. You always have familial risk. These are genetic, ancestral, or hereditary causes of stomach cancer, which are fairly rare. And this is independent of geography.

But here on the West, we tend to see more of risk factors related to the Western lifestyle. Here, gastritis or chronic gastritis, heartburn, longstanding inflammation is a risk factor. Heavy smoking, heavy alcohol use, and obesity are emerging risk factors for stomach cancer as well. And also, we have a very unique risk factor in a bacteria called H. pylori that is known globally to be a risk factor for gastric cancer.

And we’ve done research on this in that although the demographics in the U.S. is very diverse, we do see that Asians and Hispanics and African Americans compose higher risk groups for stomach cancer when compared to non-Hispanic whites. And in certain ethnic groups such as the Koreans, it can be as much as five times the risk for non-Hispanic whites. And we think it is due to these unique variations in H. pylori risk across the different races. We’ve done research at Cedars-Sinai where we’re looking at the Hispanic population and we’ve seen over time that actually, in addition to Hispanic populations being at higher risk for stomach cancer, it seems to be affecting a younger group and in particular younger females.

So we’re looking into this kind of new epidemiologic evidence as to why stomach cancer in Hispanics is becoming younger in onset and tends to have a predilection for females. And these patients however, if they are afforded the correct treatment and the timely treatment, their outcomes are just as good as the non-Hispanic counterparts. So this is an emerging topic and a very important topic in my opinion.

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