[The Clinical Effect of Ramucirumab in the Treatment of Advanced Gastric Cancer in Our Hospital].

Ramucirumab(RAM)was approved for unresectable advanced gastric cancer in March 2015. Recent Japanese gastric cancer treatment guidelines recommended RAM plus paclitaxel(PTX)and RAM alone in the treatment of patients with advanced gastric cancer who had been previously treated with chemotherapy. In this retrospective study, we evaluated the safety and efficacy of RAM alone and PTX plus RAM in these patients. Patients who were administered RAM or PTX plus RAM between March 2015 and December 2016 were enrolled in this study. We compared the clinical outcome of RAM alone(RAM group, n=11)with that of PTX plus RAM(PTX plus RAM group, n=10). The RAM group contained more patients with poor performance status than the PTX plus RAM group. More cases of Grade 3 or 4 adverse events were found in the PTX plus RAM group than in the RAM group. The response rate was 9% in the RAM group and 30% in the PTX plus RAM group. The progression-free survival was 2 months in the RAM group and 3.75 months in the PTX plus RAM group. The overall survival was not reached in the RAM and PTX plus RAM groups. We considered that RAM and PTX plus RAM are safe and effective therapies for advanced gastric cancer patients.