Differences in disease status between patients with progression after first-line chemotherapy versus early relapse after adjuvant chemotherapy who undergo second-line chemotherapy for gastric cancer: Exploratory analysis of the randomized phase III TRICS trial.

•This analysis was comparing progressive disease and early relapse for second-line advanced gastric cancer.•We estimated by inverse probability of treatment weighting (IPTW) method for adjust.•Response rate was significantly better in ER group than in progressive disease (PD) group (21.3, 4.9%).•Progression-free survival (PFS) and adjusted PFS was longer in ERG than in PDG (hazard ratio [HR]: 0.65) (IPTW HR: 0.71).•There was no significant difference in OS and adjusted OS (HR: 0.76, IPTW HR: 1.02).