[Adjuvant chemotherapy for aged patients with gastric carcinoma]

The effectiveness of postoperative adjuvant chemotherapy on aged patients (more than 70 years old) with resectable gastric carcinoma was examined in our Department. Of the 178 patients, 75 patients received the drugs on various regimen and 103 patients had no chemotherapy a control group). No significant difference was noted in patient characteristics of age, sex and curability. In advanced gastric carcinoma such as stage III and IV, a significant increase in long-term survival after surgery was obtained with combination chemotherapy or immunochemotherapy compared with the control group (P less than 0.05). On the other hand, there was no significant difference in a survival rate of the patients with stage I and II.