After a partial or total gastrectomy, adjuvant treatment with chemotherapy, sometimes combined with immunotherapy, may be necessary. This usually begins approximately one month after surgery. The goal of this treatment is to destroy any remaining cancer cells that cannot be detected because they are too small.
The most frequent side effects of adjuvant treatments are nausea or vomiting, lack of appetite (anorexia) and altered taste, along with severe fatigue. Their appearance may limit the ability to eat or make it even more difficult, even though this is already affected by surgery. So this may cause further weight loss and a worsening of nutritional status. In some cases, it may also cause diarrhoea or mucositis. The recommendation is to follow the instructions described for a partial or total gastrectomy in the patient’s current feeding progression phase and adapt them to any possible side effects or symptoms stemming from the treatment.
Chemotherapy cycles are generally every 21 days (3 weeks), and side effects usually appear within a week of treatment. It is therefore recommended to try to offset this as much as possible the week before and the week after the onset of side effects.
For the weeks without side effects, follow the post-surgery instructions and try to slightly increase intake and enrich the meals as much as possible. For the week when side effects appear, follow the recommendations below.
In the case of constipation, it is important to check with the referring medical team to assess the best strategy for addressing it.