[Conditions suitable for the adjuvant chemotherapy of gastric cancer]

From a retrospective analysis of 1,169 cases of gastric cancer treated with curative gastrectomy and randomized controlled adjuvant chemotherapy of six different protocols from 1961 to 1981, good candidates for adjuvant chemotherapy were found to be those who had lymphatic spread of n1 to n2 or serosal involvement of S1 to S2 or stage II or III diseases. Multidrug combination therapy produced better survival than single drug therapy. Long term oral maintenance therapy was not yet concluded to be essential for the adjuvant chemotherapy of gastric cancer. Patients with relatively late stage disease should be treated earlier than two weeks after surgery.