Perioperative Safety and Effectiveness of Neoadjuvant Therapy with Fluorouracil, Leucovorin, Oxaliplatin, and Docetaxel Plus Apatinib in Locally Advanced Gastric Cancer

PURPOSE: The trend in neoadjuvant therapy for locally advanced gastric cancer (LAGC) is to use more drugs or therapies in combination. This study aimed to assess the safety and effectiveness of neoadjuvant chemotherapy with fluorouracil, leucovorin, oxaliplatin, and docetaxel (FLOT) plus apatinib in the treatment of LAGC. PATIENTS AND METHODS: We collected clinical data from patients with LAGC who received neoadjuvant FLOT and apatinib therapy and underwent surgery from January 2017 to December 2020. Patients were divided into either the FLOT group (in which patients received FLOT neoadjuvant therapy and surgery) or the FLOTA group (in which patients received FLOT plus apatinib neoadjuvant therapy and surgery). RESULTS: The FLOT and FLOTA groups contained 44 and 31 patients, respectively. There were significant differences between the FLOT and FLOTA groups in the objective response rate (50.00% vs. 80.65%, respectively, p = 0.008) and average change from baseline in the target lesion size (−26.16 ± 34.61 vs. −54.32 ± 36.11, respectively, p < 0.001). There were also significant differences in the pretreatment clinical tumor-node-metastasis (cTNM) and post treatment cTNM stages for the FLOT group (p = 0.001) and for the FLOTA group (p < 0.001). There were no significant differences between the FLOT and FLOTA groups in post neoadjuvant therapy cTNM stages (p = 0.525), R0 rate (p = 0.397), tumor regression grade (p = 0.397), or post treatment pathological TNM stage (p = 0.180). Some neoadjuvant therapy-related adverse events occurred significantly more frequently in the FLOTA group, including diarrhea (all grades), pain (all grades), oral mucositis (all grades), and hand-foot syndrome (all grades). CONCLUSION: The FLOTA regimen can achieve better perioperative efficacy and acceptable toxicity compared with that of the FLOT regimen in neoadjuvant treatment of LAGC. The FLOTA regimen for neoadjuvant therapy for LAGC merits further study.