Efficacy of perioperative and neoadjuvant therapies in gastric and gastroesophageal (GEJ) adenocarcinoma (AC): A network meta-analysis.

Abstract

e16157 Background: The optimal treatment for resectable gastric/GEJ AC is unclear due to limited direct comparisons among chemotherapy and chemoradiation regimens. Addressing this gap is critical to improve patient outcomes. We performed this network meta-analysis (NMA) to determine the relative efficacy of multimodality regimens for resectable gastric/GEJ AC. Methods: MEDLINE, EMBASE, Scopus, and CENTRAL were searched from inception till September 20, 2024, to identify phase III trials evaluating perioperative/neoadjuvant systemic therapy ± radiation in resectable gastric/GEJ AC. Primary outcomes were disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS). A frequentist NMA was conducted to compare hazard ratios (HR) and 95% CI for each outcome. Relative treatment rankings were assessed using P-scores. Results: Fifteen trials (8,072 patients) were analyzed. pFLOT (perioperative fluorouracil, leucovorin, oxaliplatin, and docetaxel) ranked highest for DFS in the overall population (P score 91%) (Table), significantly outperforming surgery alone (HR 0.48, 95% CI 0.38-0.60) and nCROSS (neoadjuvant paclitaxel, carboplatin and radiotherapy) (0.67, 0.56-0.81). For OS, nPLF+nCRT(EP) (neoadjuvant cisplatin, leucovorin and fluorouracil for induction, followed by etoposide, cisplatin, and radiotherapy) (P score 90%) and pFLOT (P score 87%) were the top regimens, with pFLOT significantly outperforming surgery alone (0.57, 0.45-0.72), and nCROSS (0.73, 0.60-0.89). Adding neoadjuvant chemoradiation to pFLOT provided no additional OS (1.14, 0.76-1.72) or DFS (1.22, 0.83-1.82) benefit. Similarly, adding pembrolizumab to perioperative chemotherapy (CF/CX) (cisplatin and fluorouracil/capecitabine) was not superior to pFLOT in terms of DFS (1.10, 0.71-1.69) or OS (1.09, 0.69-1.72). Conclusions: pFLOT demonstrated superior efficacy in resectable gastric/GEJ AC, surpassing surgery alone, nCROSS, and other perioperative regimens. The additive role of immunotherapy to pFLOT requires further investigation to refine patient selection and optimize outcomes. Regimen Overall Population GEJ cohort OS DFS OS DFS nPLF+nCRT(EP) 1 (90) 2 (84) 1 (85) NA pFLOT 2 (87) 1 (91) 2 (79) 2 (88) pPembrolizumab+CF/CX 3 (75) 3 (81) 5 (41) - nECX 4 (61) 5 (55) - - pCF 5 (59) 8 (51) 3 (72) - pECF/ECX 6 (47) 6 (55) 7 (40) 3 (57) nECX+aCRT(CX) 7 (45) 7 (52) 9 (31) - nCF 8 (42) 10 (28) 6 (40) - nCROSS 9 (41) 9 (35) 8 (34) 4 (43) pECF/ECX/FLOT+nCRT(F/X) 10 (38) 4 (57) 4 (72) 1 (90) nCRT(CF) 11 (9) 11 (6) - 5 (14) Surgery 12 (7) 12 (5) 10 (5) 6 (9) Data reported as rank (P-score). Abbreviations: n: neoadjuvant; p: perioperative; ECX: epirubicin + cisplatin + capecitabine; CF: cisplatin + fluorouracil; ECF: epirubicin + cisplatin + fluorouracil; aCRT(CX): adjuvant radiotherapy + cisplatin + capecitabine; CRT(F/X): fluorouracil/capecitabine + radiotherapy; CRT(CF): cisplatin + fluorouracil + radiotherapy.