Pathologic Response Rates in Patients with Gastric Cancer Following FLOT Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy

Background: Gastric adenocarcinoma is among the most prevalent cancers associated with a high mortality rate. The multidrug neoadjuvant chemotherapy administered before and after surgery has attracted attention as a beneficial standard of care for managing this malignancy. Objectives: This study assessed the pathologic response of patients with gastric cancer who were treated with fluorouracil plus leucovorin, oxaliplatin, and docetaxel (FLOT). Methods: Patients with pathologically confirmed gastric adenocarcinoma without distant metastases were enrolled in this retrospective cohort study conducted at Imam Reza and Ghaem hospitals in Mashhad. Data regarding demographics, tumor status, treatment toxicity, and pathology results were collected using a predesigned questionnaire after four cycles of FLOT neoadjuvant chemotherapy. SPSS-26.0 was utilized to analyze the data, and a significance level of P < 0.05 was applied. Results: We evaluated data from 53 cases with a mean age of 51.1 ± 9.7 years. Diffuse adenocarcinoma was the most common finding in histology (54.7%). Pathologic complete response was observed in 16 (30.2%) patients. Most (69.8%) patients received only 7 out of 8 planned cycles. Concerning surgical margin, 46 (86.8%) patients achieved R0 tumor resection. Pathologic complete response was not significantly linked with age (P = 0.91), sex (P = 0.65), performance status (P = 0.2), tumor histology (P = 0.14), tumor grading (P = 0.07), tumor location (P = 0.8), and the number of neoadjuvant chemotherapy cycles (P = 0.9). Conclusions: Our findings demonstrated the relative clinical efficacy of neoadjuvant chemotherapy with the FLOT regimen administered before and after surgery. However, due to chemotherapy-related side effects, patients may not adhere to all eight prescribed cycles of chemotherapy.