Patients with recurrent or metastatic gastric cancer can benefit from palliative
chemotherapy. However, over half of patients with metastatic gastric cancer who received
chemotherapy failed to achieve response and even in these responders, the duration of
responses was as short as a few months. Patients with metastatic gastric cancer who fail to
respond or have relapse after first line chemotherapy have a grim prognosis and a standard
salvage treatment is not available.
We designed this phase II trial to determine the efficacy and safety of irinotecan
monotherapy or combination (ILF) as second-line therapy for advanced gastric cancer.