RESUMO
BACKGROUND: Gastric cancer (GC) is the fifth most common cancer worldwide and is responsible for 10% of annual cancer deaths. Gastric cancer treatment requires a multimodality approach involving surgery, adjuvant chemotherapy (AC), and neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) for locally advanced tumors. Surgical removal of the tumor is the most common and effective curative approach with a more promising survival rate. OBJECTIVES: Due to the scarcity of studies in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, this study aims to provide an epidemiological background on the subject and compare multiple treatments and their survival outcomes in a tertiary hospital in the western region. METHODS: After obtaining the IB approval, data was collected from medical files of all histologically confirmed GC patients (101) between the years 2000-2015. In this study, patients' demographics, tumor characteristics, treatment types, and patients' vital status (deceased or alive) were collected. Survival analysis between treatment modalities subgroups was carried out using the Kaplan-Meier test and Cox regression model. RESULTS: Out of 101 patients with GC, 65.35% were males with a mean age of 64.9±19 years and 61.71±17.83 years for female patients. Most patients had a stage IV tumor 47 (74.6%). The adjuvant chemotherapy group had a median survival time of 140 months (95% CI 33.72-246.29), while the neoadjuvant chemotherapy was 69 months. Patients who only underwent surgery had a median survival time of 28 months (95% CI 0-56.14), whereas patients who received no intervention had a median survival time of 8 months (95% CI 1.47-14.53) (log-rank = 0.002). The median overall survival time for all patients was 28 months (95%CI 0-77.68) with an overall five-year survival rate of 19.6%. Cox regression model revealed that treatment type and tumor stage were significant predictors of survival with p values of 0.001 and 0.009, respectively. CONCLUSION: Adjuvant, neoadjuvant, and palliative chemotherapy constitute the paramount treatment modalities of GC with adjuvant treatment having the highest survival time. However, these modalities necessitate further understanding as to whether other factors play a role in the selection of one treatment with the preferable outcome.