[Effect of postoperative long-term chemotherapy of stomach cancer using mitomycin C and futraful--the secondary study (1)].

The Cooperative Study Group of Surgical Adjuvant Chemotherapy for Gastric Cancer in Japan with the participation of 334 institutes nation-wide had conducted the secondary study in order to investigate the usefulness of futraful in long term treatment, based on the results obtained by the primary study. The following method was taken for the study and patients were randomly divided into three groups: A group-given a high dose of MMC immediately after operation; B group-given futraful for one year after MMC administration; C group-given futraful alone for long-term. The number of eligible cases for data analysis was 3,o30. Side effects observed during the long term treatment with futraful were considered to be minor. Although the occurrence of hematocytopenia was slightly frequent because of possible increase of influence by the concomitant use of MMC, no tendency of hepatic disorders and any subjective side effects to be strengthened by MMC combination was observed at all. As for 2-year survival, an elevated survival was found in the group of concomitant use of MMC and futraful; Especially, a significantly high survival was found in the cases of stage III and n (+) . ps (+). Furthermore, the survival was elevated in proportion to the increase of total dosage of futraful. This suggested the usefulness of futraful for long term treatment.