Present status and prospects for chemotherapy for advanced or recurrent gastric cancer in our hospital

Since S-1 was approved in 1999, the response rate and the disease control rate of the chemotherapy for advanced or recurrent gastric cancer have improved. It is important to perform chemotherapy using key drugs and to plan the chemotherapy for each case. Of the 32 patients in our hospital, the median survival time (MST) was 21 months for chemotherapy in advanced or recurrent gastric cancer during 2003-2006. MST for patients who had up to second- or third-line treatment was longer than for patients with up to first-line treatment. In addition, it there was no difference in prognosis for patients using CPT-11 or taxane at second-line after using S-1 at first-line treatment. The first-line chemotherapy for advanced or recurrent gastric cancer should be decided by the disease condition of each patient and the characteristics of each anti-cancer drug. In addition, the prognosis of patients will improve if second- or third-line chemotherapy can be performed.