Early postoperative intraperitoneal chemotherapy as an adjuvant treatment of gastric cancer

Two hundred forty-eight patients with resectable gastric cancer were randomized intraoperatively to receive EPIC with mitomycin C 10 mg/m2 on postoperative day 1 and 5-fluorouracil 700 mg/m2 on days 2-5 versus surgery only. After pathologic examination of the specimen 72 and 73 patients with stages II/III were included in the study and control groups, respectively. Overall 5 year survival after gastric resection with EPIC was higher than after surgery alone (48% versus 31%, respectively) through not statistically different. For patients with stage III disease treated with surgery and EPIC 5 year survival was 50% vs. 18% in the control group (p=0.007). There was a trend towards decreased incidence of peritoneal spread in the study group. After surgery with EPIC morbidity tended to be higher than in the control group although the difference was insignificant.