BPG is committed to discovery and dissemination of knowledge
Letter to the Editor
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2026. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastrointest Oncol. Feb 15, 2026; 18(2): 113150
Published online Feb 15, 2026. doi: 10.4251/wjgo.v18.i2.113150
Shifting paradigm in locally advanced resectable gastric and gastroesophageal junction cancers
Nabil Ismaili
Nabil Ismaili, Department of Medical Oncology, Mohammed VI Faculty of Medicine, Mohammed VI University of Sciences and Health, Casablanca 20000, Morocco
Author contributions: Ismaili N was responsible for conceptualization, methodology and software, validation, formal analysis and investigation, resources, data curation, writing original draft, review and editing and visualization.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Nabil Ismaili, MD, Associate Professor, Chief Physician, Department of Medical Oncology, Mohammed VI Faculty of Medicine, Mohammed VI University of Sciences and Health, Boulevard Mohammed Taieb Naciri, Commune Hay Hassani, Casablanca 20000, Morocco. ismailinabil@yahoo.fr
Received: August 18, 2025
Revised: October 28, 2025
Accepted: November 27, 2025
Published online: February 15, 2026
Processing time: 170 Days and 15.5 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: The recent real-world study by Wang et al adds to the growing evidence that perioperative sintilimab combined with oxaliplatin and S-1 chemotherapy improves pathological response and overall survival in non-metastatic gastric cancer, with a manageable safety profile. However, the conclusions are tempered by the study’s retrospective design, limited power, and the use of a potentially suboptimal chemotherapy backbone. Crucially, this data aligns with the positive results of the large phase III MATTERHORN trial, solidifying the paradigm shift. The collective evidence now strongly suggests that adding immunotherapy to perioperative chemotherapy enhances cure rates for locally advanced resectable gastric and gastroesophageal junction cancers, establishing this combination as a new standard of care.