[Perioperative chemotherapy of stomach cancer]

Surgery is the treatment of choice in early stages of gastric carcinoma. Systemic chemotherapy (CTx) is indicated in unresectable and metastatic disease. New studies have shown that CTx perioperatively improved median survival times compared with surgery alone in locally advanced, technically inoperable tumors. Moreover CTx induced resectability in 47-80% of the patients. Therefore, younger patients in these stages of disease should be treated with effective CTx, such as EAP, in order to induce objective remissions so that residual tumor masses can be surgically removed.