Efficacy of regional adjuvant chemotherapy in prevention of metastasis and recurrence after radical resection of pancreatic carcinoma

Abstract

Objective To evaluate the therapeutic effect of using regional adjuvant chemotherapy with the method of intra-arterial Gemzar infusion under the digital subtraction angiography(DSA)to prevent the metastasis and recurrence of the pancreatic carcinoma after radical resection.Methods The clinical data of 97 patients with pancreatic cancer treated in our hospital from 1999 to 2003 were retrospectively analyzed.All of them were treated with the radical resection of pancreatic cancer.Forty-six of them were infused with Gemzar through gastroduodenal artery(GDA),superior mesenteric artery(SMA)and/or splenic artery(SA)a month later after operation as experimental group.repeat it every 2 months according to the conditions of the patients The rest patients who did not received chemotherapy were employed to serve as the controls.Results The patients receiving regional adjuvant chemotherapy were followed up until Jan 2006,the 1-,3- and 5-year survival rate was 85.2%,52.9%,and 11.8%,respectively,in experimental group,65.4%,33.6% and 5.3%in control group.The cumulative metastatic and recurrent rates of experimental group in 1,3 and 5 years were 28.9%,60.5% and 88.3%,respectively.Which were significantly lower than those of control group (P＜0.05).The median time of metastasis and recurrence was 30.4 months in experimental group and 19.8 months in the control.Conclusion Regional adjuvant chemotherapy can decrease the metastatic and recurrent rates effectively after the radical resection of pancreatic carcinoma and improve the patients'survival. Key words: Pancreatic neoplasms; Metastasis recurrence; Chemotherapy