5-Fluorouracil, epirubicin, and mitomycin C versus 5-fluorouracil, epirubicin, mitomycin C, and leucovorin in advanced gastric carcinoma. A randomized trial.

Leucovorin (LV) enhances the activity of 5-fluorouracil (5FU). Based on these data, we performed a randomized trial with 5FU, epirubicin (EPI), mitomycin C(MMC) with/ without LV in advanced gastric cancer (AGC). The purpose of our study was to investigate if the addition of LV improved the response rate of the combination 5FU EPI, MMC (FEM) over FEM.

A randomized trial comparing adjuvant fluorouracil, epirubicin, and mitomycin with no treatment in operable gastric cancer.

Combination chemotherapy (CT) has, in some groups of patients with gastric cancer (GC), who are at a high risk for relapse, resulted in a small but measurable improvement in palliation and patient survival not reaching statistical significance and therefore remaining applicable in an investigational setting. Based on the above data, we studied adjuvant CT with FEM (5-fluorouracil (5-FU), epirubicin, mitomycin C) in a randomized study of patients with completely resected stage III GC and patients with stages T1-3 with a low histologic grade. CT was started 2-3 weeks after surgery.