Regional differences in advanced gastric cancer: exploratory analyses of the AVAGAST placebo arm.

"Conflict of interest Akira Sawaki has received honoraria from Novartis, Pfizer, and Bayer. Yasuhide Yamada has received honoraria from Chugai Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd, Taiho, and Yakult. Kensei Yamaguchi has received honoraria from Chugai Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd., Merck, Takeda, and Eli Lilly, and declares another relationship with Taiho. Tomohiro Nishina has received honoraria from Chugai Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. Taroh Satoh has received honoraria from Chugai Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd., Merck-Serono, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and Eli Lilly, performed consulting or advisory roles for Chugai Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd., Merck–Serono, Bayer, Eli Lilly, Ono, and Daiichi-Sankyo, and received research funding from Chugai Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd., Ono, and Yakult Honsha. Narikazu Boku has received honoraria from Chugai Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. Yoshito Komatsu has received honoraria from Chugai Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd., Taiho, Yakult, and Eli Lilly, and received research funding from Chugai Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd., Taiho, Eli Lilly, Ono, Merck, and Merck, Sharpe & Dohme. Yasuo Hamamoto has received honoraria from Chugai Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. Shigehira Saji has received honoraria and research funding from Chugai Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. Manish A. Shah has received research funding from Berg Pharma, Sanofi Aventis, and Roche. Eric Van Cutsem has received research funding from Amgen, Bayer, Boehringer, Celgene, Ipsen, Lilly, Merck, Novartis, Roche, and Sanofi. Yoon-Koo Kang has received honoraria and research funding, and performed consulting or advisory roles for Roche. Junko Iwasaki, Hiroshi Kuriki, Wataru Ohtsuka are employees of Chugai Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. Hiroshi Kuriki owns stock in Chugai Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. Toshihiko Doi, Keisho Chin, Yasushi Omuro, Wasaburo Koizumi, and Atsushi Ohtsu declare that they have no conflicts of interest."

"Funding Financial support for this research was provided by Genentech, F Hoffmann-La Roche, and Chugai Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. Fuminori Shindo (Chugai Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.) contributed to study operation and statistical analysis. Kensuke Kuniya (Chugai Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.) supported manuscript writing. We thank Harriet Lamb of Miller Medical Communications, who provided writing services on behalf of Chugai Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd."

"AVAGAST was a prospective, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, phase III trial designed to evaluate the efficacy of adding bevacizumab to capecitabine plus cisplatin in the first-line treatment of patients with advanced gastric cancer. The design of AVAGAST has been described in full previously []. The protocol was approved at each participating site by an independent ethics committee or institutional review board. The trial was registered (ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT00548548)."