The prognosis of patients with advanced gastric cancer is poor. The goal of this study was to evaluate the efficacy and safety of combination therapy of cetuximab and S-1 combined with oxaliplatin (SOX) in Chinese patients with advanced gastric cancer.

For patients in the experimental group (cetuximab in combination with SOX (Ce-SOX), 30 patients), once-weekly cetuximab (400 mg/m² at the first infusion then 250 mg/m² every week) was administered. For patients in both the control (SOX alone, 26 patients) and experimental groups, oxaliplatin (100 mg/m²) was administered intravenously on day 1, while S-1 (80 mg/m²/day) was given orally twice daily for 14 days. The endpoints of this study included progression-free survival, response rate, and disease-control rate.

There was no statistically significant difference in response rate between the Ce-SOX and SOX groups (54.8% versus 44%, P = 0.225). The difference in disease-control rate was also statistically insignificant between the two groups (87.1% versus 76%, P = 0.162). Median progression-free survival in the Ce-SOX group was significantly higher than that in the SOX group (12.8 versus 10.1 months, P = 0.007). The median overall survival of the Ce-SOX group and SOX group was 14.0 and 12.2 months, respectively (P = 0.043). The one-year survival rate for the Ce-SOX group was 57% compared to 40% in the SOX group. There was no statistical difference in the grade 3 or 4 adverse effects between the two groups.

These findings suggest that the cetuximab combined with SOX regimen is feasible and shows promising efficacy with tolerable adverse effects in Chinese patients with advanced gastric cancer.