Healthcare Professionals
Chemoradiotherapy
- Several trials like the Gastrointestinal Tumor Study Group (GITSG), RTOG 9704, EORTC on multimodal adjuvant therapy have reported the beneficial effects of chemoradiotherapy (CRT) but more studies are needed to set standard therapy regimens.
- Reports suggest improvement in disease free survival but not in overall survival as compared to chemotherapy alone.
- The EORTC study is evaluating gemcitabine with radiotherapy in R0 resected pancreatic head cancer.
- The results of a few trials on chemoradiotherapy are listed below:
Studies of Adjuvant Chemoradiotherapy for Pancreatic Cancer. |
Study |
Median survival (months)
|
| |
No. of patients |
ChemoXRT |
Observation |
p value |
GITSG |
43 |
20 |
11 |
0.03 |
EROTC |
114 |
17.1 |
12.6 |
0.099 |
ESPAC |
|
15.9 |
17.9 |
0.05 |
ChemoXRT = Chemoradiotherapy; GITSG = Gastrointestinal Tumor Study Group; EORTC = European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer; ESPAC = European Study Group for Pancreatic Cancer |
- According to a recent report based on studies carried out by Dr. Kim from City of Hope National Medical Center, California and colleagues published in Cancer 2008; 112: 34-42, patients with N0 pancreatic cancer who were subjected to adjuvant EBRT demonstrated increase in medial survival as compared to the group of patients who were not treated with adjuvant EBRT. The study also reports that the benefit of EBRT was significant in patients with T3 lesions. Patients with T1 and T2 lesions did not show a similar advantage but there were no ill effects of the therapy.
- Reports of studies involving interferon based chemotherapy with radiotherapy are encouraging though more research is needed in the field.
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