Effect of Adjuvant Chemoradiotherapy on Survival of Gastric Cancer Patients: Single Center Experience from the Southeast Region of Turkey

Background/Aim: Gastric cancer causes the second highest number of cancer related deaths. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the survival of patients who are T3, T4, lymph node positive postoperatively and have undergone adjuvant chemoradiotherapy (CRT). We also examined the toxicities of CRT.
Materials and Methods: Included in this retrospective study were one hundred six, stage IIA, IIB, IIIA, IIIB and IIIC gastric cancer patients undergoing adjuvant chemoradiotherapy after four weeks of surgery presenting at our hospital between 2009 and 2013. Statistical analysis was done with the SPSS (version 19) programme and survival analysis was done by using the Kaplan-Meier method.
Results: The median follow-up of patients was 25 months (range; 7-38). There were local recurrences in 25.9% (n=22) of patients and liver metastasis in 20% (n=17), lung metastasis in 16.5% (n=14) and peritoneal metastasis in 5.9% (n=5). There were no recurrences in 31.8% (n=27) of patients. The median disease free survival (DFS) of the patients was 11 months (8.4-13.5) and overall surival (OS) was 29 months (24.3-33.6).
Conclusion: Survival rates were found to be lower than expected, this could be due to ongoing dietary habits and the low socioeconomic status of the patients. Toxicities were manageable.