Postoperative Adjuvant Chemoradiotherapy on the Survival of Stage III Gastric Cancer

Although adjuvant therapy has been shown to be beneficial in gastric cancer, the use of adjuvant chemoradiotherapy remains controversial. This paper investigated the effects of postoperative adjuvant chemoradiotherapy on the survival of patients with stage III gastric cancer.

In total, the data of 72 stage III gastric cancer patients treated at our hospital from January 2014 to December 2019 were retrieved and assessed. They were categorized into a chemotherapy group (CT group) and a radiochemotherapy group (RCT group) according to their given treatment regimens. A 3-year follow-up was conducted to record their incidence of disease-free survival (DFS), overall survival (OS), and adverse events.

For the CT and RCT groups, DFS was 86.4% and 92.6% in the first year, decreasing to 55.1% and 73.7% in the second year, and 41.3% and 69.1% in the third year. There was no significant difference in DFS between the two groups during the three-year follow-up. Additionally, for the CT and RCT groups, their respective 1-year, 2-year, and 3-year OS were 95.6% and 96.3%, 75.1% and 87.9%, and 50.3% and 74.2%, indicating that the OS of patients in the RCT group was significantly higher than that in the CT group during 3 years of follow-up. Further, no significant difference in the incidence of adverse events was found between the two treatment groups.

Collectively, adjuvant radiochemotherapy after radical gastrectomy for stage III gastric cancer was associated with better survival outcomes than chemotherapy, without increase in adverse events.