Perioperative chemotherapy with 5-fluorouracil, leucovorin, oxaliplatin and docetaxel (FLOT) improves overall survival (OS) in patients with resectable gastric or gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma (G/GEJA), yet most will have recurrence and ultimately die of the disease. Now, new data from the phase III MATTERHORN trial indicate that adding the anti-PD-L1 antibody durvalumab further improves outcomes in this setting.

In MATTERHORN, 948 patients with resectable stage II–IVA G/GEJA were randomly assigned (1:1) to receive FLOT (on days 1 and 15) plus either durvalumab or placebo (on day 1) for two neoadjuvant and two adjuvant 4-week cycles, followed by durvalumab or placebo alone for 10 cycles. The primary end point was event-free survival (EFS).