Neoadjuvant chemotherapy in controlling lymph node metastasis for locally advanced gastric cancer in a Chinese population

This study aimed to evaluate the efficacy of FOLFOX6, SOX and XELOX as neoadjuvant chemotherapy for advanced gastric cancer. The study retrospectively assessed clinicopathological data of patients who received a radical D2 gastrectomy for gastric cancer from January 2010 to January 2013. The patients were either not administered neoadjuvant chemotherapy (control) or were given FOLFOX6, SOX and XELOX prior to surgery. The metastatic rate was also higher for the control group compared with the three chemotherapy regimens in N2 station lymph nodes (P < 0.001). The SOX group had significantly lower metastatic total and N2 station lymph nodes than FOLFOX6 and XELOX (P < 0.01). The frequency of metastatic lymph nodes relative to total lymph nodes examined was 9.9, 6.6, 3.9 and 5.3% for control, FOLFOX6, SOX and XELOX groups, respectively. In conclusion, SOX may be the most effective of these treatments as preoperative chemotherapy for Chinese patients with advanced gastric cancer.