The efficacy and safety of targeted therapy with or without chemotherapy in advanced gastric cancer treatment: a network meta-analysis of well-designed randomized controlled trials

Background Advanced gastric cancer (AGC) is a severe malignant tumor associated with high mortality. Targeted therapy is an important approach for improving the therapeutic effects of AGC treatment. This study evaluates the efficacy and safety of targeted agents for AGC patients. Methods PubMed, EmBase, and the Cochrane Library were searched for double-blind randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of AGC treatments published prior to July 2017. Progression-free survival (PFS), overall survival (OS), objective response rate (ORR), and severe adverse effects (AEs) were evaluated to determine the efficacy and safety of targeted agents. A network meta-analysis with a frequentist framework was performed to assess the effects of various targeted agents for AGC treatment. Results Our analysis included 16 articles involving 5371 patients and 11 types of agents. The network meta-analysis showed that apatinib (97.5%) was most likely to improve PFS, followed by regorafenib (86.3%) and rilotumumab (65.4%). Apatinib was similarly best for OS outcome, (95.5%) followed by rilotumumab (74.7%) and regorafenib (70%). Apatinib (89.6%) also had the best improvement on ORR, followed by rilotumumab (75.4%) and everolimus (68.4%). Bevacizumab (85.5%) was likely to get the lowest severe AEs, followed by sunitinib (63%). Conclusions Apatinib, regorafenib, and rilotumumab improved patient PFS and OS. When combined with chemotherapy, ramucirumab and rilotumumab had high efficacy but low tolerability, and bevacizumab had moderate efficacy and tolerability for PFS. Without chemotherapy, ramucirumab and regorafenib had relatively high therapeutic efficacy tolerability for PFS.