The Japanese Gastric Cancer Association (JGCA) established the “Nishi Memorial Award in Gastric Cancer” to commend high-quality papers published in Gastric Cancer. In each volume of the Journal, three articles are selected by the Editorial Committee, and the JGCA awards 100,000 Japanese yen to the first authors. For volume 22, the following articles were selected.

Delay in initiation of postoperative adjuvant chemotherapy with S-1 monotherapy and prognosis for gastric cancer patients: analysis of a multi-institutional dataset

Delayed initiation after 8 weeks for postoperative chemotherapy with S-1 monotherapy was associated with a greater risk of gastric cancer recurrence, especially hematogenous metastasis as an initial recurrence.

Gastric Cancer 2019;22:1215–1225

figure a

Predictive factors for hyperprogressive disease during nivolumab as anti-PD1 treatment in patients with advanced gastric cancer

This study demonstrated the predictive factors for hyperprogression during nivolumab treatment in patients with advanced gastric cancer.

Gastric Cancer 2019;22:793–802

figure b

DNA methylation genome-wide analysis in remnant and primary gastric cancers

We investigated the genome-wide DNA methylation patterns of PGC and RGC tissues. This study demonstrated that promoter methylation status in PGC is higher than in RGC.

Gastric Cancer 2019;22:1109–1120

figure c