Postoperative chemotherapy may improve prognosis in unresectable gastric cancer

We have retrospectively evaluated to prognosis of patients with unresectable gastric cancer (UGC) and the effect of postoperative chemotherapy on that prognosis. One hundred patients who died of UGC included 37 patients who received postoperative chemotherapy (chemotherapy group) and 63 patients who did not receive postoperative chemotherapy (control group). Chemotherapy regimens were as follows: intravenous mitomycin (MMC) plus 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) (n = 15), oral 5-FU alone (n = 10), intravenous methotrexate (MTX) plus 5-FU (n = 8), intravenous cisplatin plus 5-FU (n = 2), and hepatic arterial infusion of 5-FU plus oral 5-FU (n = 2). No prior chemotherapy or radiation therapy was given. All patients' cancers were stage IV. Median survival of the chemotherapy group (238 days) was significantly longer than the control group (137 days). The 1-year survival rate in the treated group was 19.0% but only 2.4% in the control group (p < 0.01). Patients with palliative gastrojejunostomy did not survive significantly longer than those having laparotomy alone or ileal tube insertion. We conclude that the prognosis for patients with UGC remains very poor, but postoperative chemotherapy may contribute to prolonged survival in patients with UGC.