Survival and prognosticators of gastric cancer that recurs after adjuvant chemotherapy with S-1

Some patients experience a recurrence of cancer even after curative D2 gastrectomy followed by adjuvant S-1 chemotherapy. The objective of this retrospective study was to clarify the survival and prognosticators in these patients.The study selected patients who underwent curative D2 surgery, were diagnosed with stage II, IIIA, or IIIB cancer, received adjuvant S-1 for more than 4 weeks, and experienced recurrence confirmed by an imaging study.A total of 34 patients were evaluated. The median overall survival (OS) was significantly longer in the 26 patients who received palliative chemotherapy than that in the 8 who did not (8.5 vs. 2.5 months, P = 0.002). Only 1 patient received S-1, 21 received taxane-containing regimens, and 4 received irinotecan plus cisplatin as the first-line chemotherapy. Univariate and multivariate analyses showed that the histological type was only independent significant prognosticator.These results suggested that the survival did not reach the level expected for first-line chemotherapy. The histological type was a significant prognosticator in patients who experienced recurrence after adjuvant S-1 therapy and thereafter received palliative chemotherapy.