Stomach cancer patients who receive chemotherapy before and after
surgery have significantly higher survival rates, according to a study
published this week.
"This is the first time we've been able to demonstrate that
chemotherapy alone significantly improves outcome," David Cunningham,
an oncologist at the Royal Marsden Hospital in England who led the
study, told Reuters.
Chemotherapy increased the five-year survival rate by 57 percent for a
cancer that strikes nearly one million people worldwide each year, the
study said. About 700,000 die from it annually.
The researchers studied 503 patients and their findings were published
in this week's New England Journal of Medicine.
The results "convincingly demonstrated a benefit" from chemotherapy
pre-treatment, John Macdonald of St. Vincent's Comprehensive Cancer
Center in New York wrote in an editorial in the New England Journal.
The finding offers a new option for people with stomach cancer,
Macdonald wrote.
Cunningham, who led the study, said a recent test of chemotherapy and
radiation had shown similarly good results after surgery.
If diagnosed early, surgery can cure 90 percent of all stomach cancer.
But because it is rarely caught quickly, the cure rate drops to 20 to
30 percent with doctors long agreeing that chemotherapy after surgery
is so ineffective that it is routinely not prescribed.
The new study, conducted at 45 medical centers, mostly in the United
Kingdom, however, may change that.
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