Review of adjuvant chemotherapy for gastric cancer

Controlled randomized studies that compared surgery alone to adjuvant chemotherapy for gastric cancer were reviewed. The amount of residual tumor after surgery, selection of drug regimens, compliance with drug administration, and trial design seem to be responsible for the success of adjuvant chemotherapy. Though there are few beneficial regimens of adjuvant chemotherapy with statistical significance, single drug therapy with mitomycin C (MMC) and combination therapy with 5-fluorouracil (5FU) and methyl-CCNU, MMC/5FU/cytosine arabinoside (MFC), and 5FU/Adriamycin/MMC (FAM) seem to have potential survival benefit for patients with curative surgery. Incorporation of new drugs into adjuvant or neoadjuvant chemotherapy might open a new aspect of multimodality therapy for gastric cancer.