A case report of three patients with metastatic gastric cancer on hemodialysis who were treated with cisplatin–fluorouracil regimen

Gastric carcinoma is the first cause of death worldwide. In previous studies that included best supportive care and chemotherapy comparison, chemotherapy survival time was four to five months more than best supportive care. This time was reported as seven to nine months in cisplatin and fluorouracil therapy. We aimed to call attention to non-progression survival time which was being longer with cisplatin and fluorouracil therapy in three metastatic gastric carcinoma patients who were on hemodialysis due to chronic renal impairment related to diabetic nephropathy. We determined that this regimen was well tolerated with hemodialysis, and the median time to progression was eight months (range 7–10). This time was similar to the time results of previous studies. In our hypothesis, hemodialysis may increase the time to progression significantly and we aimed to discuss the hypothetical relation between dialysis membrane and circulating tumor cells.