The survival benefits of conversion surgery in patients with metastatic gastric cancer (mGC) remain unclear. Thus, this study aimed to determine the outcomes of conversion surgery compared to in-front surgery plus palliative chemotherapy (PCT) or in-front surgery alone for mGC. We recruited 182 consecutive patients with mGC who underwent gastrectomy, including conversion surgery, in-front surgery plus PCT, and in-front surgery alone at Linkou Chang Gung Memorial Hospital from 2011 to 2019. The tumor was staged according to the 8th edition of the American Joint Committee on Cancer. Patient demographics and clinicopathological factors were assessed. Overall survival (OS) was evaluated using the Kaplan−Meier curve and compared among groups. Conversion surgery showed a significantly longer median OS than in-front surgery plus PCT or in-front surgery alone (23.4 vs. 13.7 vs. 5.6 months; log rank p < 0.0001). The median OS of patients with downstaging (pathological stage I−III) was longer than that of patients without downstaging (stage IV) (30.9 vs. 18.0 months; p = 0.016). Our study shows that conversion surgery is associated with survival benefits compared to in-front surgery plus PCT or in-front surgery alone in patients with mGC. Patients who underwent conversion surgery with downstaging had a better prognosis than those without downstaging.
Keywords: chemotherapy; conversion surgery; metastatic gastric cancer; outcomes.