Memorial Sloan Kettering’s Vivian Strong, MD, FACS, addressed peers from around the world in May 2025 at the 16th Annual International Gastric Cancer Congress. Dr. Strong, a surgeon and MSK’s Iris Cantor Chair in Honor of Dr. Sidney Winawer, presented, “Gastric Cancer: A Global Fight for Innovation, the U.S. Perspective,” as the meeting’s Jin Pok Kim Lecturer.
The landscape perspective presentation looked at the global burden of gastric cancers and how both innovation and the patient population of the U.S. differ from those of our colleagues around the world. Dr. Strong’s detailed update illustrated how precision and collaboration will move us all forward, citing the U.S.’s path as “one of many parallel paths that we’re all taking towards our innovation and discovery for gastric cancer.” She noted that while the U.S.’s recent clinical trials on immunotherapy and advances in complex surgery are informing global care, no one region holds all the right answers.
Vivian Strong, MD, Addresses the 16th International Gastric Cancer Congress
MSK experts have been on the forefront of many recent innovations highlighted by Dr. Strong including examples of two timely publications in The New England Journal of Medicine with practice-changing implications: Nonoperative Management of Mismatch -Repair Deficient Tumors and Perioperative Durvalumab in Gastric and Gastroesophageal Junction Cancer.
While stressing the importance of global collaboration and partnership, Dr. Strong recognized the need to break down silos to propel our research and progress with three main goals: detecting earlier, personalizing deeper, and collaborating wider.