[Reported in Tumour Biol, February 2014] Title: A meta-analysis shows radiotherapy benefits patients with locally resectable gastric cancer (Authors Li et al.) Li et al. conducted a meta-analysis to assess the impact of radiotherapy on 3- and 5-year survival in patients with locally resectable gastric cancer. The meta-analysis searched PubMed, Embase, and the Cochrane Clinical Controlled Trials Database, with a cut-off date of May 2013. Randomized controlled trials comparing surgery combined with preoperative and/or postoperative radiotherapy with surgery alone or combined with chemotherapy were included. The main meta-analysis metric was risk ratios (RRs), and a brief risk assessment was performed by applying randomized and fixed-effects models. The investigators analyzed 14 randomized controlled trials that included a total of 2853 patients. The results showed that radiotherapy significantly improved 3- and 5-year survival rates. Subgroup analysis showed that preoperative radiotherapy significantly improved 3- and 5-year survival (RR 1.56, 95% CI 1.19-2.05; RR 1.40, 95% CI 1.13-1.73) without increasing preoperative mortality (RR 0.85, 95% CI 0.42-1.72). Surgery combined with radiotherapy or chemotherapy significantly improved 3- and 5-year survival rates compared with surgery alone (RR 1.18, 95% CI 1.01-1.38; RR 1.38, 95% CI 1.18-1.61). There was no substantial publication bias in the included studies. This meta-analysis showed that adjuvant radiotherapy significantly improved 3- and 5-year survival rates in patients with locally resectable gastric cancer. Preoperative radiotherapy was safe and clearly improved overall survival. However, there is no evidence that postoperative radiotherapy benefits patients with gastric cancer undergoing radical surgery plus expanded lymph node dissection.