Background: Two-thirds of patients with esophagogastric cancer will be treated with palliative intent, with palliative chemotherapy being the most widely applied therapy. Just over half of those scheduled to receive this treatment will complete treatment as planned, with other patients failing to complete either because of disease progression or treatment side effects. The aim of this review was to report response rates, survival and toxicity of palliative chemotherapy for esophagogastric adenocarcinoma. Methods: Forty-three randomised phase III clinical trials, reporting on 12,945 patients during the years indicate 1990-2016 were evaluated and information on response rate, survival and treatment related toxicity extracted. Thirty-three studies described patients receiving 1 st line therapy and ten studies described patients receiving 2 nd line therapy. Results: Combination regimens were the most widely applied treatment worldwide as first line, with response rates in the order of 20-62%, and median overall survival in the order of 7.2-14.1 months. 30-85% of patients went on to receive second line therapy, generally single agent therapy, with reported response rates in the order of 7-22%, and median overall survival in the range 4.0-13.9 months. With the exception of trastuzumab, the effects of biological agents have been largely disappointing. The principal toxicities for chemotherapy were gastrointestinal (0-58%) and neutropenia (1-39% single agent, 12-82% combination therapy). Conclusions: At the current time, combination therapy remains the standard of care for patients with advanced esophagogastric adenocarcinoma.
No takes yet. Share an insight, caveat, or question.
Eltweri et al. (2016) studied this question.
Synapse has enriched 5 related papers. Consider them for comparative context: