Healthcare Professionals

Neoadjuvant Therapy

• Chemoradiotherapy prior to surgery in potentially resectable pancreatic tumors is a promising alternative option to the post surgery adjuvant therapy and remains investigational.
• The possible benefits are slowing progression of the disease, prevention of metastasis, aiding complete resection, prevention of spread of tumor during and after surgery, better outcome of surgery, and better outcome of radiotherapy.
• Reports of trials conducted at MD Anderson center with 5 FU and RT with 50.4 Gy have shown increased median survival but most patients suffered from severe toxicities of the therapy⁸.
• Therapy with gemcitabine and RT has been reported to be most promising with lesser side effects and lesser need for hospitalization to manage the side effects.
• Trials have also reported benefits of neoadjuvant therapy for down staging the disease; some locally advanced cases were converted to resectable stage.
• Ongoing phase II studies are evaluating newer radiation techniques like Intensity modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) and Image guided radiotherapy (IGRT).

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