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Background Adjuvant chemotherapy and chemoradiotherapy are some of the standards of care for gastric cancer (GC). The Adjuvant chemoRadioTherapy In Stomach Tumors (ARTIST) 2 trial compares two adjuvant chemotherapy regimens and chemoradiotherapy in patients with D2-resected, stage II or III, node-positive GC. Patients and methods The ARTIST 2 compared, in a 1:1:1 ratio, three adjuvant regimens: oral S-1 (40-60 mg twice daily 4 weeks on/2 weeks off) for 1 year, S-1 (2 weeks on/1 week off) plus oxaliplatin 130 mg/m2 every 3 weeks (SOX) for 6 months, and SOX plus chemoradiotherapy 45 Gy (SOXRT). Randomization was stratified according to surgery type (total or subtotal gastrectomy), pathologic stage (II or III), and Lauren histologic classification (diffuse or intestinal/mixed). The primary endpoint was disease-free survival (DFS) at 3 years; a reduction of 33% in the hazard ratio (HR) for DFS with SOX or SOXRT, when compared with S-1, was considered clinically meaningful. The trial is registered at clinicaltrials.gov (NCT0176146). Results A total of 546 patients were recruited between February 2013 and January 2018 with 182, 181, and 183 patients in the S-1, SOX, and SOXRT arms, respectively. Median follow-up period was 47 months, with 178 DFS events observed. Estimated 3-year DFS rates were 64.8%, 74.3%, and 72.8% in the S-1, SOX, and SOXRT arms, respectively. HR for DFS in the control arm (S-1) was shorter than that in the SOX and SOXRT arms: S-1 versus SOX, 0.692 (P = 0.042) and S-1 versus SOXRT, 0.724 (P = 0.074). No difference in DFS was found between SOX and SOXRT (HR 0.971; P = 0.879). Adverse events were as anticipated in each arm, and were generally well-tolerated and manageable. Conclusions In patients with curatively D2-resected, stage II/III, node-positive GC, adjuvant SOX or SOXRT was effective in prolonging DFS, when compared with S-1 monotherapy. The addition of radiotherapy to SOX did not significantly reduce the rate of recurrence after D2 gastrectomy.

Background To identify predictive markers for responders in lapatinib-treated patients and to demonstrate molecular changes during lapatinib treatment via cell-free genomics. Patients and methods We prospectively evaluated the efficacy of combining lapatinib with capecitabine and oxaliplatin as first line neoadjuvant therapy in patients with previously untreated, HER2-overexpressing advanced gastric cancer. A parallel biomarker study was conducted by simultaneously performing immunohistochemistry and next-generation sequencing (NGS) with tumor and blood samples. Results Complete response was confirmed in 7/32 patients (21.8%), 2 of whom received radical surgery with pathologic-confirmed complete response. Fifteen partial responses (46.8%) were observed, resulting in a 68.6% overall response rate. NGS of the 16 tumor specimens demonstrated that the most common co-occurring copy number alteration was CCNE1 amplification, which was present in 40% of HER2+ tumors. The relationship between CCNE1 amplification and lack of response to HER2-targeted therapy trended toward statistical significance (66.7% of non-responders versus 22.2% of responders harbored CCNE1 amplification; P = 0.08). Patients with high level ERBB2 amplification by NGS were more likely to respond to therapy, compared with patients with low level ERBB2 amplification (P = 0.02). Analysis of cfDNA showed that detectable ERBB2 copy number amplification in plasma was predictive to the response (100%, response rate) and changes in plasma-detected genomic alterations were associated with lapatinib sensitivity and/or resistance. The follow-up cfDNA genomics at disease progression demonstrated that there are emergences of other genomic aberrations such as MYC, EGFR, FGFR2 and MET amplifications. Conclusions The present study showed that HER2+ GC patients respond differently according to concomitant genomic aberrations beyond ERBB2, high ERBB2 amplification by NGS or cfDNA can be a positive predictor for patient selection, and tumor genomic alterations change significantly during targeted agent therapy.

Background REGATTA is a phase III trial to compare chemotherapy alone (arm A) and reduction surgery followed by chemotherapy (arm B) for advanced gastric cancer with a single non-curable factor. The trial failed to show superiority of reduction surgery, which could be partially explained by poor compliance of chemotherapy in arm B. This exploratory analysis aims to clarify whether upfront surgery has survival benefit in patients (pts) who could continue chemotherapy for some period, enrolled in REGATTA. Methods In REGATTA, 175 pts were assigned to arm A (86 pts) and arm B (89 pts). S-1 80 mg/m2 for 3 weeks and CDDP 60 mg/m2 on day 8 was repeated every 6 weeks. The pts were limited to those for whom chemotherapy was continued at 2, 4, or 6 months after randomization (cohort-2M, cohort-4M, or cohort-6M, respectively) and pts who underwent gastrectomy in arm A were excluded. The overall survival (OS) was defined as the duration from the date at 2, 4, or 6 months after randomization to the date of the death from any cause or to the last date of contact for a surviving pt. Results Examined pts were 130 (59 in arm A and 71 in arm B) in cohort-2M, 111 (50 in arm A and 61 in arm B) in cohort-4M, and 90 (43 in arm A and 47 in arm B) in cohort-6M, respectively. In cohort-2M, the median survival time (MST) was 14.1 months (m) (95% CI, 11.7-16.6) in arm A and 12.6 m (9.9-15.9) in arm B with hazard ratio (HR) of 0.935 (0.641-1.635). The OS was 9.7% (3.2-20.5) in arm A and 17.9% (9.2-28.8) in arm B at 3-year. In cohort-4M, the MST was 13.1 m (10.3-18.8) in arm A and 11.5 m (8.4-15.1) in arm B with HR of 0.954 (0.629-1.448). The OS was 11.5% (3.8-24.0) in arm A and 21.2% (11.0-33.6) in arm B at 3-year. In cohort-6M, the MST was 13.8 m (9.8-22.1) in arm A and 10.9 m (6.6-16.6) in arm B with HR of 0.860 (0.535-1.383). The OS was 13.2% (4.3-27.0) in arm A and 26.0% (13.1-41.0) in arm B at 3-year. Conclusions Among pts having certain period of chemotherapy, there seem to be more long survivors in arm B than the arm A. Reduction surgery may still be promising if chemotherapy compliance after surgery could be improved. Clinical trial identification UMIN000001012, Feb 2008. Legal entity responsible for the study Japan Clinical Oncology Group (JCOG). Funding The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare of Japan and the Korean Gastric Cancer Association. Disclosure All authors have declared no conflicts of interest.

Aims According to the recent Japanese Gastric Cancer Association's gastric cancer treatment guidelines, bursectomy is recommended for tumors penetrating the serosa of the posterior gastric wall. However, there is still little data to show whether bursectomy improves patient survival. The aim of this study is to evaluate the efficacy of bursectomy for subserosa or serosa-positive gastric cancer in terms of overall survival. Method From April 2001 to December 2006, 470 patients underwent curative resection for macroscopically subserosa or serosa-positive gastric cancer. These patients were grouped according to whether bursectomy was performed or not (bursectomy+/bursectomy−). Clinicopathological characteristics and incidence of complications were compared between the groups. The overall survival rates were analyzed using a Cox proportional hazards model. Results There was no significant difference in morbidity and mortality between the bursectomy+ and bursectomy− groups. In the multivariable analysis for overall survival, bursectomy was not a significant independent factor ( p = 0.978). In the subgroup analysis for clinical and pathological stage III and IV, and tumors penetrating the serosa of the posterior gastric wall, bursectomy did not have significant effect on overall survival as well ( p = 0.582, 0.453, and 0.532, respectively). In the propensity score-matched patients, bursectomy still showed no significant effect on overall survival ( p = 0.804). Conclusions Bursectomy is unlikely to improve overall survival in patients with macroscopically subserosa or serosa-positive gastric cancer.

The activation of coagulation, angiogenesis and inflammatory cytokines are considered to be related with tumour growth and metastasis. We investigated the plasma levels of platelet microparticles (PMP), vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), IL-6, and the chemokine RANTES in patients with gastric cancer (n=109) and in healthy controls (n=29). The plasma levels of PMP, IL-6 and RANTES were significantly higher in the patients than in the healthy controls, and plasma levels of PMP, VEGF, IL-6 and RANTES were significantly higher in patients with stage IV disease than those in patients with stage I or stage II/III. In terms of predicting distant metastasis, the sensitivities of PMP, VEGF, IL-6 and RANTES were 93.3%, 56.7%, 70.0% and 81.8%, respectively, and the corresponding specificities were 91.1%, 64.6%, 79.7% and 50.0%. Among these parameters, PMP had the highest diagnostic accuracy. Significant correlations were found between PMP, VEGF, IL-6 and RANTES. This study demonstrates that the plasma levels of PMP, VEGF, IL-6 and RANTES were markedly increased in patients with stage IV disease, and that these increased plasma levels of IL-6, RANTES, and especially PMP, might be useful for identifying metastatic gastric patients.