[Case Report of Four Patients Received Ramucirumab Monotherapy as Second-Line Chemotherapy for Advanced Gastric Cancer].

ABSTRACT

Ramucirumab monotherapy is one of the conditionally recommended regimens in second-line chemotherapy for advanced gastric cancer. However, there are few clinical data on ramucirumab monotherapy in Japanese patients. Herein, we present 4 case reports of advanced gastric cancer patients who received ramucirumab monotherapy. The 4 patients' age ranged from 65-81 years old(median 70 years old), with a 31 male to female ratio. Since all cases were in poor performance status, administration of cell-killing anticancer drugs such as paclitaxel was contraindicated, and ramucirumab monotherapy was selected as an alternative. Ramucirumab was administrated 2-8 times(median 3 times), resulting to a stable disease in 1 patient, and progression-free survival was noted to be 3-16 weeks(median 5 weeks). Regarding complications, Grade 2 hypertension occurred in 1 patient, and no serious adverse events were observed. Ramucirumab monotherapy is a well-tolerated second-line chemotherapy for patients with advanced gastric cancer in poor performance status, and it is expected to have some disease control effect.