[Multihospital co-operative study of post-operative adjuvant chemotherapy in the treatment of gastric cancer-(Part 3). Comparisons between tegafur and UFT. North Kyushu Co-operative Study Group for Cancer Chemotherapy].

The North Kyushu Co-operative Study Group for Cancer Chemotherapy (21 participating facilities) carried out a comparative study of post-operative adjuvant chemotherapy in the treatment of 243 patients after surgery of gastric cancer in stages II, III and IV over 27 months period starting from October 1983. The patients were divided randomly into group A (treated with 20 mg of MMC on the day of the surgery and 10 mg of MMC on the following day, and with a daily dose 600 mg of orally administered tegafur starting from two weeks after the surgery. In addition to the above treatments, patients with Stage IV were treated with 10 mg of MMC every three months starting from four weeks after the surgery) and group B (treated with MMC in a similar manner to group A, and with 600m g of UFT instead of the tegafur). Thirty-three patients (13.6%) were excluded or dropped out, and the remaining 210 cases were analyzed. No severe side effects appeared in either of the groups, and a long-term administration was safe. The five-year survival rate among the radical surgery patient was significantly higher in the UFT group compared with the tegafur group (p less than 0.05). Significantly higher survival rate in the UFT group was observed (p less than 0.05) for the cases of poorly-differentiated adenocarcinoma. From the above results it appears that an addition of UFT to the treatment with MMC is useful in post-operative adjuvant chemotherapy for gastric cancer.