Adjuvant chemotherapy versus preoperative chemotherapy for gastric cancer treated with curative‐intent resection: A propensity score‐matched analysis

Background Multimodal therapy (MMT), comprising surgery alongside perioperative chemotherapy (PCMT) or adjuvant chemotherapy (ACMT), has demonstrated improve in survival compared with surgery alone for advanced gastric cancer (GC). However, the moment of administering chemotherapy for GC is still a matter of debate. This study aimed to compare PCMT and ACMT in patients with locally advanced GC. Method We included all gastric adenocarcinoma treated with chemotherapy and curative‐intent resection. Using propensity score matching (PSM), patients who received PCMT were matched with patients undergoing ACMT for 10 pretreatment variables. Results Among the 552 patients with indication for MMT, 377 (68.3%) received combining chemotherapy (CMT): 116 (30.8%) PCMT and 261 (69.2%) ACMT. After PSM, 109 patients were matched in each group. All variables assigned in the score were well matched and both groups became equivalent. Patients receiving PCMT had less angiolymphatic and perineural invasion, less advanced pT, pN and pTNM stage than ACMT group (p