“By the time they are detected, many stomach cancer metastases have already spread through the body. Small stomach cancer metastases tend to occur on the peritoneum. During surgery to remove the stomach tumor, the peritoneum can be treated with a heated chemotherapy infusion. This HIPEC treatment is currently already available for metastases from other cancer types, but the PERISCOPE I trial confirmed that this treatment is feasible and safe to be used for stomach cancer as well. The PERISCOPE II will hopefully show that this procedure can also extend the lives of our patients. I also researched adenocarcinomas in the esophagus. Some patients respond well to chemoradiation, and some barely respond, if at all. We have discovered that large parts of the tumors found in people of the latter group do contain immune cells after treatment, but that they do not sufficiently attack the tumor. Our next goal is to find out how we can predict and solve this.”
Willem will defend his thesis on November 3.