Abstract

ABSTRACT Aim: No standard salvage chemotherapy regimens has been established for patients with advanced pancreatic cancer after failure of gemcitabine-based treatment. Although a phase I/II clinical trial of FGS was conducted, the number of patients enrolled was small and the efficacy and safety of FGS is still not well known. Methods: We retrospectively reviewed 67 patients who received FGS as salvage chemotherapy at our institution from March 2009 to Mach 2014. The selection criteria in this study was progressive disease under gemcitabine-based chemotherapy, ECOG performance status Results: Sixty-six patients were selected for the analysis. Twenty-two patients of them had received FGS as third line treatment. The overall responce rate was 12% and the disease control rate was 45%. The median progression-free survival time was 2.7 months and the median overall survival time was 6.0 months. The common grade 3/4 toxicities were leukopenia (11%), neutropenia (15%), diarrhea (3%), anorexia (2%) and fatigue (2%). Univariate analysis showed that performance status of >0, presence of ascites, serum carcinoembryonic antigen level of > 10 ng/ml, serum albumin level of 500 IU/L and serum C-reactive protein level of > 1.0 mg/dl were significantly associated with a poor prognosis. Multivariate analysis identified serum C-reactive protein level of > 1.0 mg/dl and serum albumin level of Conclusions: FGS as salvage chemotherapy for patients with gemcitabine-refractory advanced pancreatic cancer is marginally effective and well tolerated in a practical setting. These results suggest FGS is of value to be further investigated in a clinical trial in patients with gemcitabine-refractory pancreatic cancer. Disclosure: All authors have declared no conflicts of interest.

Full Text
Published version (Free)

Talk to us

Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have

Schedule a call