To set up a trial exploring the role of radiotherapy in inoperable stomach cancer

I intend to use the award by setting up a trial exploring the role of radiotherapy in inoperable stomach cancer.

Stomach cancer is the second leading cause of death from malignant disease worldwide. Curative surgical resection remains the only most effective modality for localised gastric cancer but only 33.8% patients are suitable for this treatment.

The prognosis of unresectable or recurrent tumours is dismal: with best supportive care, median survival is about 4 months, and with chemotherapy it is around 8 months. It is not known if the addition of radiotherapy (RT) would have a role in this setting. There have been some retrospective single centre case series and a pre-operative study running in Australia, but no prospective studies of its use as definitive treatment, with or without the addition of chemotherapy. I would seek to set up a feasibility study to try and answer this question. There are several areas that need to be explored as part of this work (see below) and I would use the majority of the time to undertake these.