Abstract:

Gastric cancer is one of the most common malignancies and most patients have been at the advanced stage when they were diagnosed. In recent years, although diagnosis and treatment techniques of gastric cancer develop rapidly, problems such as local infiltration and metastasis still affect the prognosis of gastric cancer. The 5-year survival rate of patients with advanced gastric cancer remains very low. With the development of molecular biology, many novel targeted agents have been research hotspots and some of them are at the phase of clinical research. Hepatocyte growth factor/cellular-mesenchymal to epithelial transition factor (HGF/c-Met) signaling pathway is closely correlated with the occurrence, development, metastasis, and prognosis of gastric cancer and is a potential target for the targeted therapy of gastric cancer. This paper reviews research progresses of structures and functions of HGF/c-Met signaling pathway, effects of HGF/c-Met signaling pathway on the occurrence and development of gastric cancer, and HGF/c-Met signaling pathway-related targeted agents of gastric cancer.

Key words: gastric cancer, targeted , therapy, HGF/c-Met