Background: Adjuvant therapy after surgery is effective for the treatment of advanced gastric cancer (GC), but the regimens are not uniform, resulting in imbalanced benefits.
Objectives: To compare the overall survival (OS), relapse-free survival (RFS) and disease-free survival (DFS) of patients with local-advanced GC (LAGC) after surgery plus adjuvant therapy and with surgery alone based on meta-analysis.
Material and methods: Literature search was performed among the articles published in the PubMed, Embase and Cochrane Library databases from January 2000 to December 2018. Study selection was conducted based on the following criteria: randomized clinical trials (RCTs) on surgery plus adjuvant therapy compared to surgery alone; studies compared OS and/or RFS/DFS; and cases medically confirmed with LAGC. Only articles in English were included.
Results: A total of 12 datasets from 11 randomized controlled trials (RCTs) involving 4606 patients were included in the meta-analysis. There was a significant improvement in OS of patients who underwent postoperative adjuvant therapy (HR 0.78; 95% CI: 0.72-0.84; p < 0.001). In the subgroup analysis, it showed a higher improvement in OS patients who received adjuvant chemotherapy plus immunotherapy or radiotherapy (HR 0.72; 95% CI: 0.61-0.85; p < 0.001).
Conclusion: Adjuvant therapy led to survival benefits in patients with LAGC.
Keywords: chemotherapy; gastric cancer; overall survival; radiotherapy.