Post-Op Chemo Fails to Boost Survival in Stomach Cancers

Drug-surgery combo showed no significant improvement in outcomes, study finds

TUESDAY, March 11 (HealthDay News) -- Chemotherapy following surgery does not improve survival in stomach cancer patients, says an Italian study.

Currently, surgery is the only treatment that can potentially cure non-metastatic gastric cancer, according to background information in the study. However, some recent research has suggested that a chemotherapy combination of cisplatin, epirubicin, 5-fluorouracil and leucovorin (PELF) improves outcomes in people with metastatic gastric cancer. In this study, researchers tested the PELF combination in patients with localized gastric cancer. Some of the 258 patients in the study were treated with surgery only, while others had surgery followed by chemotherapy.

At a median follow-up of 72.8 months, there was no statistical difference between the two groups in terms of disease-free survival or overall survival. Disease progression occurred in 47.7 percent of patients in the surgery/chemotherapy group and in 51.6 percent of those in the surgery group.

The survival rate was 47 percent in the surgery/chemotherapy group and 45.3 percent in the surgery group.