[Discrepancy in Gastric Cancer Chemotherapy between the Asia and West]

There are still remarkable discrepancies in chemotherapy for gastric cancer between the Asia and West. Frequency, pathophysiology, treatment details, and outcomes of gastric cancer vary greatly depending on racial and regional differences. For example, in Japan, endoscopic mucosal resection/dissection is widely used for the diagnosis of early gastric cancer. Surgical outcomes are better in Japan than in the West, and the degree of lymph node dissection tends to be lower in the West. It is important to note that there are differences in the various backgrounds surrounding gastric cancer in the geographical regions. This paper describes the current status and future prospects of chemotherapy strategies in the field of gastric cancer chemotherapy, where new agents have been introduced successively in recent years, in Asia and the West, including background differences such as frequency and pathological conditions.