Survival benefit of gastric resection in the setting of metastatic gastric cancer.

166 Background: Prognosis remains poor for metastatic gastric cancer. Gastrectomy in the setting of stage IV disease is typically reserved for palliation of symptoms such as bleeding or obstruction. The potential survival benefit of resection on survival is controversial. The objective of this study is to determine using the National Cancer Database (NCDB) whether there was an increase in overall survival in patients diagnosed with metastatic cancer who underwent a gastrectomy in addition to chemotherapy. Methods: The NCDB was queried between 2004-2014 for patients with metastatic gastric cancer (adenocarcinoma, mucinous adenocarcinoma, or signet ring carcinoma) who received chemotherapy. Kaplan-Meier analysis and multivariate Cox proportional hazards regression analysis was done using SAS software. Results: A total of 20,599 patients met inclusion criteria. A minority of these patients (2,508; 12.2%) underwent gastric resection in addition to chemotherapy. The median overall survival for those who underwent gastrectomy was 14.1 months compared to 8.6 months for chemotherapy alone (p < 0.0001). Other factors influencing survival included age, race, Charlson-Deyo co-morbidity index, year of diagnosis, primary tumor site, grade, and metastasis to multiple organs. Following multivariate analysis, patients who underwent gastrectomy and chemotherapy had a 36% lower risk of death compared to patients that had received chemotherapy alone (HR 0.64, 95% CI 0.48–0.80, P < 0.0001). Conclusions: In this population analysis, the addition of gastrectomy to chemotherapy was associated with improved overall survival for patients with stage IV gastric cancer and should be considered for patients that are surgical candidates. Patients who underwent gastrectomy had a 36% decreased risk of death compared to those who had chemotherapy alone. However, only a small proportion of patients in the United States received multimodality treatment.