Early postoperative intraperitoneal adriamycin as an adjuvant treatment for advanced gastric cancer with lymph node or serosal invasion

Abstract

Gastric cancer represents an unsolved problem in oncology, with a majority of patients going on to die of their disease, despite an aggressive surgical approach. This cancer fails its surgical treatment, both at systemic sites and within the abdominal cavity. Autopsy studies have shown that local recurrence rates are extremely high with this malignant process. Approximately 9 out of 10 patients are shown to have local recurrence, with the resection site involved in the recurrent malignant process [1]. Also, at least half of the patients who recur have peritoneal seeding in addition to the resection-site recurrence [2]. These local recurrence rates are more commonly seen in patients with lymph-node-positive disease. Recent reports emphasize that survival is reduced and peritoneal seeding plus local recurrence rates are increased in patients who have serosal invasion [3–6]. These two clinical features — (1) lymph-node positivity and (2) serosal invasion — are the strongest prognostic variables with this disease.