A multicenter randomized phase III trial of neo-adjuvant chemotherapy followed by surgery and chemotherapy or by surgery and chemoradiotherapy in resectable gastric cancer: First results from the CRITICS study.

4000Background: The mainstay of potentially curative treatment of gastric cancer is radical surgical resection. Because most patients in the Western world present with advanced stages long-term survival remains poor at about 25%, with local recurrences as part of treatment failure in up to 80% of cases. Postoperative chemoradiotherapy (CRT) and perioperative chemotherapy (CT) have demonstrated a survival benefit over surgery alone. The current randomized phase III CRITICS-study (NCT00407186) investigated whether chemoradiotherapy after neo-adjuvant chemotherapy and adequate (D2) surgery leads to improved overall survival (OS) in comparison with postoperative chemotherapy. Furthermore, toxicity of both treatment regimens was explored. Methods: Patients with stage Ib-IVa resectable gastric cancer were randomized after diagnosis. Neo-adjuvant CT was prescribed in both arms and consisted of 3 courses of epirubicin, cisplatin/oxaliplatin and capecitabine (ECC/EOC). After gastric cancer resection, patients rece...