Metastatic Gastric cancer: Real world scenario from a developing country

Data on epidemiology and outcome in metastatic stomach carcinoma patients from India are scarce. We aimed to evaluate clinical features and treatment outcome in patients treated at our center.

This is a single institutional review of metastatic gastric carcinoma patients treated between May 2011 and October 2016. Patients who received at least one cycle of chemotherapy were included for modified intent-to-treat survival analysis.

total of 143 patients were diagnosed with metastatic stomach carcinoma with a median age of 56 years (range: 29-86). The most common symptoms were abdominal pain in 112 (78%) patients. The most common site was body in 81 (57%) patients. Common site of metastasis was peritoneum in 86 (60%) and liver in (62%). Seventy-one (50%) patients were eligible for survival analysis. Common chemotherapy regimens were capecitabine-cisplatin in 27 (38%) and EOX in 22 (31%) patients. Survival status could not be assessed in 29 (41%) patients who lost to follow-up. After a median follow-up 9.7 months (range: 0.5-37.7), median progression-free survival (PFS) was 7.9 months (range: 0.5-23.9) and median overall survival (OS) was 12.2 months (range: 0.5-37.7). The Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) performance status (PS) ≥2 and the presence of linitis plastica showed a trend toward inferior PFS (P = 0.052 and 0.053, respectively) only in univariate analysis. Female sex and ECOG PS ≥2 predicted inferior OS in both univariate and multivariate analysis (P = 0.012, 0.02 and 0.03 and 0.05, respectively).

Platinum-based doublet chemotherapy was used in the majority of patients. The overall outcome was comparable to that of the available literature. Female sex and ECOG PS ≥2 predicted the inferior outcome.