This paper compiles and reviews the data on chemotherapy with single drugs and multiple drug combinations in gastric cancer. Of the more than two dozen individual agents that have been used, only a few have been adequately evaluated, and just three (5-fluorouracil, Mitomycin C, and BCNU) exhibit clinically significant activity. The review points out the paucity of information on the efficacy of many standard anticancer drugs and the need for clinical studies designed specifically for stomach cancer.
Cancer 34:15761586, 1974.
N SPITE OF A REAL, BUT UNFORTUNATELY I unexplained, decrease in its incidence, adenocarcinoma of the stomach still is the seventh leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States. I n 1973, it was estimated that 14,700 patients would die from gastric cancer, and over 16,000 new cases would be diag-n0sed.~5 At this time, surgical resection is the principal therapeutic modality offering the only hope for long-term disease-free survival. However, of the 20-50y0 of patients who can undergo "curative" resection, approximately 4 out of 5 die from recurrent cancer within 5 years. Several recent reviews show the overall 5-year survival rate ranges from 5-1570.19830J4, 46,5*,55v6D,R5,96 T h e role of chemotherapy in the treatment of gastric cancer has been primarily confined to the palliative management of disseminated disease; it has been infrequently employed as an adjuvant to other therapeutic modalities. This review will detail the available data on the chemotherapy of gastric cancer in order to provide a background for future studies which will hopefully involve integration of chemotherapy with surgery in combined modality approaches. This data has been ob-