[Adjuvant treatment in cancer of the stomach]

Surgical excision remains up to now the first potentially curative treatment for patients who are suffering from stomach cancer. The encouraging results recently obtained in the survival of these patients are to be attributed essentially to the screening for this disease. Unfortunately, in the countries of the Western World, 80 to 90% of patients with a stomach cancer still consult their physician at an advanced stage of the disease. This makes it necessary to look for new efficient adjuvant treatments to be implemented after surgery. Numerous chemotherapeutic combinations have been studied. The FAM association is the best known among all these; results of these treatments are reviewed. Other encouraging perspectives come from the association of chemotherapy and biochemical modulators, chemotherapy and radiation-therapy, IORT and other adjuvant treatments. These results are also reviewed.