Recently, chemosensitivity tests have become widely used for the selection of effective drugs in gastric cancer patients. In this study, a chemosensitivity test was performed to select agents to increase the effectiveness of adjuvant chemotherapy.

Chemosensitivity testing was performed in 81 gastric cancer patients that received a gastrectomy at the Yeungnam University Hospital. An ATP (adenosine triphosphate) based chemotherapy response assay was used. Clinicopatholgical factors such as sex, age, expression of tumor markers (CEA and CA19-9 levels), location of the tumor, morphology of advanced cancer, histological type, cell differentiation, depth of invasion, Lauren classification, Ming classification, lymphatic invasion, vascular invasion, neural invasion, lymph node metastasis and TNM stage were used to correlate the chemosensitivity and clinicopathological factors.

The most effective antitumor agents in gastric cancer patients were (in order of effectiveness) 5-FU, Epirubicin, Irinotecan and Oxaliplatin in our series. The chemosensitivity test showed a significant difference in susceptibility according to clinicopathological factors.

Further studies on multidrug therapy are needed to evaluate synergistic effects of drugs. Therefore, for effective chemotherapy, it is more efficacious to select a chemosensitive drug than continue to use the same drug regimen.