The role of the outpatient clinic in chemotherapy for patients with unresectable or recurrent gastric cancer.

Background: Recently, outpatient chemotherapy centers have become popular in Japan. To clarify the actual conditions of outpatient clinics, we surveyed entire clinical courses of chemotherapy in patients with unresectable or recurrent gastric cancer.

Methods: From the medical records of 64 patients with unresectable or recurrent gastric cancer with no prior chemotherapy, we obtained data on overall survival, non-hospitalized survival, the number of and reasons for attendance at the outpatient clinic and hospitalization, and medical conditions at discharge.