CA 19-9 may be a useful adjunct to response evaluation is this setting. In addition to CA 19-9 responses, prechemotherapy levels of this marker seem to have strong prognostic significance.

Combined up-front chemoradiotherapy was associated with tolerable and acceptable side effects. A significant number of patients had complete disappearance of their tumors (30.5 percent) within a median follow-up of 36 months. This regimen spared 26.2 percent of patients from surgical treatment and allowed sphincter-saving management in 38.1 percent of patients who may have required abdominoperineal resection. Preliminary results of this trial suggests a reduction in the number of local recurrences and reinforces the concept that infiltrative low rectal cancer may be initially treated by chemoradiotherapy.

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Aim: Prognostic differences between major histologic gastric cancer groups, intestinal and diffuse are uncertain, since cellular components in each of them possibly have different behaviors. Materials & methods: We reviewed 198 gastric cancer patients charts diagnosed from January 2003 to December 2015 in a tertiary hospital. Multivariate Cox proportional survival models were used to evaluate the impact of histologic groups on overall survival. Results: About a third had the signet-ring cell carcinoma (SRCC). In a comparison of the different histologic subtypes, SRCC had the worst prognosis of all. The median durations of survival for patients with stage III and stage IV were 19.7 and 7.7 months, respectively. Conclusion: Signet-ring cell component seem to have a relevant role in defining prognosis for gastric cancer.