Meta-analysis of intraperitoneal chemotherapy for gastric cancer

AIM: To assess the efficacy and safety of intraperitoneal chemotherapy in patients undergoing curative resection for gastric cancer through literature review. METHODS: Medline (PubMed) (1980-2003/1), Embase (1980-2003/1), Cancerlit Database (1983-2003/1) and Chinese Biomedicine Database (1990-2003/1) were searched. Language was restricted to Chinese and English. The statistical analysis was performed by RevMan4.2 software provided by the Cochrane Collaboration. The results were expressed with odds ratio for the categorical variables. RESULTS: Eleven trials involving 1 161 cases were included. The pooled odds ratio was 0.51, with a 95% confidence interval (0.40-0.65). Intraperitoneal chemotherapy may benefit the patients after curative resection for locally advanced gastric cancer, and the combination of intraperitoneal chemotherapy with hyperthermia or activated carbon particles may provide more benefits to patients due to the enhanced antitumor activity of drugs. Sensitivity analysis and fail-safe number suggested that the result was comparatively reliable. However, of 11 trials, only 3 studies were of high quality. CONCLUSION: Intraperitoneal chemotherapy after curative resection for locally advanced gastric cancer may be beneficial to patients. Continuous multicenter, randomized, double blind, rigorously designed trials should be conducted to draw definitive conclusions.