We retrospectively evaluated the efficacy of postoperative adjuvant therapy in 541 gastric cancer patients who underwent gastrectomy. Postoperative adjuvant chemotherapy consisted of the intravenous injection of MMC and/or the oral administration of fluoropyrimidines, while immunochemotherapy was done by adding the oral administration of PSK. The overall survival rate (Kaplan-Meier method) was improved by postoperative adjuvant therapy. However, there was no significant difference in survival

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... tween the patients receiving chemotherapy and those receiving PSK. Cox multivariate regression analysis of the factors related to survival (including sex, age, tumor size, pTNM stage, histological grade and therapy) indicated that postoperative therapy was a significant prognostic factor. The age and sex of patients receiving chemotherapy were also significant prognostic factors, but this was not so far patients receiving chemotherapy plus PSK. Patients given chemotherapy plus PSK showed a better relative survival rate than those receiving only chemotherapy. We conclude that postoperative adjuvant chemotherapy and immunochemotherapy may give better results than gastrectomy alone, and that the age of the patients needs to be considered before postoperative adjuvant chemotherapy started.