Summary of Department
The Department of Gastrointestinal and Medical Oncology focuses on the medical treatment of advanced gastrointestinal malignancies, cancer of unknown primary, soft tissue sarcoma and breast cancer. The staff of our department consists of seven medical oncologists (head: Executive director of clinical research institute, four staff doctors [including one geriatric oncologist], one fellow and one resident).
In recent years, the effect of chemotherapy for advanced solid malignancies has dramatically improved with the development of new anticancer drugs and advances in their method of administration and side effects.
We participate in trials of investigational new drugs and many multicenter collaborative trials that are important for establishing standard treatments. In addition, from the perspective of cancer genome medicine, comprehensive analyses of oncogenes are conducted in order to screen patients for clinical trials.
If active treatment shows no marked effect and cancer progresses, we take into consideration the wishes of the patients and their family and perform appropriate referrals to home care or palliative care facilities in addition to administering palliative care at our hospital.
