Clinical efficacy of apatinib in treating metastatic gastric cancer and its effect on IL-17

Clinical efficacy of apatinib in treating metastatic gastric cancer and its effect on the levels of serum IL-17 were investigated. A retrospective analysis was performed on 129 patients who had metastatic gastric cancer after first-line chemotherapy and were treated in Xiangyang No. 1 People's Hospital from February 2012 to February 2015. Of these patients, 78 received oral apatinib and were assigned to experimental group; and 51 received oral tegafur-gimeracil-oteracil and were assigned to control group. Clinical efficacy was compared between the two groups, and the levels of serum IL-17 were measured for all the patients. The treatment response rate in the experimental group was 52.56% and in the control group 31.37%. Apparently, the treatment response rate in the experimental group was higher than that in the control group, and the difference was statistically significant (P