Healthcare Professionals
Chemotherapy
- Studies have now established that adjuvant chemotherapy prolongs disease free survival and moderately increases the overall survival.
- Clinical trials conducted with 5-FU/ folinic acid as adjuvant therapy reported significant survival benefit as compared to the group which did not receive adjuvant therapy.10
- Another recent trial demonstrated the beneficial effects of gemcitabine as adjuvant therapy in patients who had undergone R0 and R1 resection surgeries. The therapy had significant positive influence on the disease free survival and overall survival in both the R0 and R1 sub groups with minimal adverse effects.11
- Gemcitabine is now considered as the drug of choice for adjuvant therapy for pancreatic cancer.
- Gemcitabine in combination with epidermal growth factor receptor monoclonal antibodies (EGFR-MoABs) and anti-angiogenic drugs is also reported to be promising.
- More studies are needed to set optimum adjuvant chemotherapy regimens.
- The results of some trials on adjuvant chemotherapy are summarised in the table below:
Studies of Adjuvant Chemotherapy for Pancreatic Cancer. |
Study |
Median survival (months) |
|
No.of Patients |
Chemo |
Observation |
p value |
Espac- 1
(Leucovorin + 5-FU) |
289 |
20.1 |
15.5 |
0.009 |
Norwegian
(5-FU + doxorubicin + mitomycin) |
47 |
23 |
11 |
0.02 |
CONKO-001
(gemcitabine) |
368 |
13.4 |
6.9 |
<0.001 |
Chemo = Chemotherapy; ESPAC = European Study Group for Pancreatic Cancer; CONKO = Charite Onkologie |
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