Lineage of drug discovery research on fluorinated pyrimidines: chronicle of the achievements accomplished by Professor Setsuro Fujii.

Prof. Setsuro Fujii achieved significant results in the field of drug discovery research in Japan. He developed nine well-known drugs: FT, UFT, S-1 and FTD/TPI are anticancer drugs, while cetraxate hydrochloride, camostat mesilate, nafamostat mesilate, gabexate mesilate and pravastatin sodium are therapeutic drugs for various other diseases. He delivered hope to patients with various diseases across the world to improve their condition. Even now, drug discovery research based on Dr. Fujii's ideas is continuing.

Changes in Standard Treatments and Postoperative Outcomes for Advanced Gastric Cancer at One Institute over an 11-Year Period.

BACKGROUND: Reportedly, the recently established postoperative adjuvant chemotherapies (ADJs) with tegafur and uracil (UFT) or fluoropyrimidine S (S-1) show better survival than surgery alone in patients with advanced gastric cancer (GC). We analyzed chronological changes in postoperative prognosis of patients with advanced GC in our institute, and investigated the efficacy of ADJ in patients with stage II-III GC. METHODS: Of 143 patients with stage II-III GC who underwent curative gastrectomy at Tottori University Hospital between 1998 and 2008, three died with operative complications within 1 month after surgery. The remaining 140 patients were followed to the end of 2013. We compared disease-free survival (DFS) and clinicopathological differences between 82 patients who underwent gastrectomy during 1998-2002 (Group A) and 58 patients who underwent gastrectomy during 2003-2008 (Group B). RESULTS: Operative quality, as represented by number of dissected lymph nodes, was similar in both groups, but the recurrence rate of Group A (51.2%) was higher than in Group B (37.9%, P = 0.12) and the 5-year DFS rate of Group B (62.3%) was higher than that of Group A (50.2%, P = 0.095). In stage II, the 5-year DFS rate of patients in Group B (73.3%) was similar to Group A (77%), but at tumor stage III, the 5-year DFS rate of patients in Group B increased to 48.7%, compared with 33.1% of Group A. Between 2003 and 2008, S-1 was widely used as ADJ for stage II-III GC. CONCLUSION: Postoperative ADJ with S-1 improved DFS of patients with stage III gastric cancer.