Key clinical point: Among patients with nonmetastatic gastric cancer who received both surgery and neoadjuvant chemotherapy (neoadj) or adjuvant chemotherapy (adj), those with stage III disease benefited from neoadj, whereas those with stage I disease benefited from upfront surgery followed by adj.
Major finding: Overall survival with surgery + neoadj vs surgery + adj was worse in patients with stage I disease (hazard ratio [HR] 1.186, 95% CI 1.004-1.402), comparable in those with stage II disease (HR 0.98; 95% CI 0.91-1.07), and significantly improved in those with stage III disease (HR 0.78; 95% CI 0.69-0.90).
Study details: This retrospective study included 11,984 patients with resectable gastric cancer (stage I 15%; stage II 67%; stage III 18%) who underwent surgery and chemotherapy treatment either before or after surgery.
Disclosures: No information on funding was available. The authors declared no conflicts of interest.
Source: Ramos-Santillan V et al. The order of surgery and chemotherapy matters: Multimodality therapy and stage-specific differences in survival in gastric cancer. J Surg Oncol. 2022 (Oct 4). Doi: 10.1002/jso.27110