Comparisons of effects of SOX and mFOLFOX6 chemotherapy regimens on patients with locally advanced gastric cancer

The neoadjuvant chemotherapy plays an important role in locally advanced gastric cancer, but its efficacy, safety profiles and clinical outcomes among different regimens still remain controversial. In this study, totally 231 eligible patients with locally advanced gastric cancer were enrolled. These patients were divided into the observation group (SOX regimen, n = 123) and control group (mFOLFOX6 regimen, n = 108) according to different chemotherapy regimens. Then, the differences in chemotherapy efficacy, adverse reactions, surgical characteristics, complications and survival condition were compared. No significant differences were observed in clinical efficacy of chemotherapy, the rate of D2 lymph node clearance, R0 resection, complications, responses of neoadjuvant chemotherapy and survival condition between two groups (P > 0.05). The incidence of abdominal pain, diarrhoea, nausea and vomiting in the observation group were significantly lower than those in the control group (16.26% vs 29.63%, chi(2) = 5.893, P < 0.05; 11.38% vs 26.85%, chi(2) = 9.084, P < 0.05; 35.77% vs 53.70%, chi(2) = 7.499, P < 0.05). The SOX regimen and mFOLFOX6 regimen have similar chemotherapy efficacy for locally advanced gastric cancer, but SOX regimen has a lower risk of gastrointestinal adverse reactions comparing with mFOLFOX6 regimen.