Fig. 1

Kaplan–Meier survival curves for patients stratified by the initial status of stage IV disease (a) and the residual tumor status (b). IR = initially resectable disease, including patients with category 1 stage IV gastric cancer; UR = unresectable disease, including patients with category 2–4 stage IV gastric cancer. * Follow-up time: time from the start of initial chemotherapy to the date of death or of the last follow-up visit