Chemo Drug Improves Stomach Cancer Survival for Japanes...(ifferently than Caucasians minimizing it...),Health

Other drugs are being used successfully against stomach cancer, as is radiation, said Dr. Jaffer Ajani, professor of medicine at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. But surgery is the essential first step in treatment of stomach cancer, he said.

"Chemotherapy alone has never been shown to be beneficial," Ajani said.

The U.S. National Cancer Institute estimates that there are 21,260 new cases of stomach cancer among Americans each year, with 11,210 deaths.

"Treatment for my patients includes radiation and chemotherapy together," Ajani said. "Not for every patient, but for most patients."

Use of such adjuvant therapy for stomach cancer began slowly, with studies showing that "chemotherapy was better than not for patients with metastatic disease," Shah said. Later trials showed benefits for people whose cancers had not spread.

"For gastric cancer, since 2001, some kind of adjuvant therapy has been given here in the United States, along with radiation," Shah said.

More information

Complete information on stomach cancer is available from the U.S. National Cancer Institute.

SOURCES: Manish Shah, M.D., assistant attending oncologist, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York City; Jaffer Ajani, M.D., professor of medicine, University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston; Nov. 1, 2007, New England Journal of Medicine