Current management of advanced and locally unresectable gastric carcinoma

Gastric cancer is the most chemotherapy-responsive adenocarcinoma of the major gastrointestinal sites. For patients with advanced disease, the response rates and survival achieved with recently designed Adriamycin-based regimens represent an improvement over the past use of 5-fluourouracil alone or combined with a chloroethylnitrosourea. Effective palliative treatment can be administered in an out-patient setting without the necessity of producing severe or life-threatening toxicity. Nevertheless, response durations are finite, as is patient survival. It is essential that Phase II trials of new drugs be continued in an attempt to identify agents with greater therapeutic activity for this disease. For the locally unresectable stage, combined modality therapy incorporating palliative resection of the primary tumor, regional radiation therapy and chemotherapy, has provided long-term disease-free survival for 15--25% of all patients. The most promising aspect of current clinical investigation is the application of the Adriamycin-based drug combinations in controlled trials of surgical adjuvant therapy.