Comparison of 5-fluorouracil with ftorafur in adjuvant chemotherapies with combined inductive and maintenance therapies for gastric cancer.

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Abstract
A group of 243 patients with gastric cancer was subjected to a prospective randomized trial of adjuvant chemotherapy after curative gastrectomy. One of the 3 arms (regimen A) is induction therapy with a 3-drug combination of mitomycin C (MMC), 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) and cytosine arabinoside (ara-C) followed by intermittent oral administration of 5-FU for 2 yr (MFC + F). In regimen B, 5-FU in regimen A is replaced by ftorafur administered on the same schedule as regimen A (MF''C + F''). Regimen C is the control, in which patients are treated by surgery alone. Regimen A was effective for the suppression of relapse in the limited groups of moderately locally advanced cancer; 5-yr survival rates of the subset of stages I, II and III were 72.1% with regimen A and 53.1% with regimen C (P < 0.05). Regimen B yielded a better survival than the control, although the difference did not reach statistical significance. The results seem to favor 5-FU as adjuvant chemotherapy for gastric cancer.