[Medical decision in clinical oncology: the example of drug therapy of gastric cancer in the advanced stage during the last decade].

The therapy of advanced stomach cancer is used to exemplify the clinicians' thoughts when confronted with the decision of adapting a standard treatment for a particular disease. This example shows that the different steps of clinical trials are not chosen on a rational basis and that the concern of rapidity may lead to untimely conclusions which force the clinician to set off useless therapeutic trials. We conclude that, unfortunately, the clinical practise in oncology remains to be largely improved.