[Effect of adjuvant chemotherapy for patients with early gastric cancer]

Effects of adjuvant chemotherapy following curative resection were evaluated in patients with early gastric cancer. According to postoperative chemotherapy, seven hundred and thirty-one patients were divided into four groups as follows. MMC+FT group: those who received mitomycin C and tegafur; MMC group: those receiving MMC; FT group: those given tegafur or 5-FU; NC group: those who never received chemotherapy. Postoperative recurrence was observed in 25(3.4%) of the 731 patients. Relationships between rates of recurrence or survival with clinicopathological findings were assessed among the four groups. In cases with cancer cell invasion of the intralesional veins, recurrence tended to occur less in the groups given postoperative chemotherapy, compared to the NC group. When a positive venous invasion was determined, rates of recurrence in the MMC+FT, MMC, FT and NC groups, were 7.4, 0, 0 and 35.7%, respectively. On the other hand, in relation to other clinicopathological findings, no differences were observed in rates of recurrence among those groups. As for the survival rate, no differences were observed in the clinicopathological findings among the four groups. These findings indicate that adjuvant chemotherapy may contribute to prevention of postoperative recurrence in patients with early gastric cancer, especially in cases with positive venous invasion.