RESUMEN
<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To observe the effect of Weichang'an (WCA, a Chinese preparation) in preventing post-operative metastasis of progressive stage of gastric cancer.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>A prospective randomized, controlled study was conducted by dividing the 148 patients of progressive staged gastric cancer after radical operation into the WCA group, the chemotherapy (CT) group and the WCA + CT group, to observe the survival rate, metastasis rate, quality of life (QOF) and tumor-bearing survival time after relapse (TST) in patients.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>The 1-, 2- and 3-year survival rate after operation in the WCA + CT group was 89.51%, 69.77% and 55.76% respectively, which was significantly higher than that in the CT group (83.86%, 59.33% and 49.43%) respectively (P < 0.05), but showed insignificant difference as compared with that in the WCA group (93.23%, 79.34% and 71.78%). Only 1-year metastasis in the WCA group was 15.25%, and in the WCA + CT group was 15.52%, the two were significantly lower than that in the CT group (35.48%, P < 0.05). But the comparison of 2-year metastasis rate among the 3 groups (28.81%, 41.38% and 45.16%) and 3-year metastasis rate among them (33.90%, 46.55% and 51.61%) were insignificantly different. The QOF and TST were markedly better in the WCA group than those in the CT group.</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>WCA has preventive effect on relapse and metastasis in post-operational gastric cancer patients.</p>