Meta-analysis of the clinical outcome of intraoperative radiotherapy in patients with unresectable locally advanced pancreatic cancer

Abstract

Objective To explore the clinical efficacy and safety of intraoperative radiotherapy (IORT) for the patients with unresectable locally advanced pancreatic cancer. Methods Cochrane library, PubMed, EMbase, CBM, CNKI, VIP database and WANFANG database were used to retrieve, in addition to manual retrieval important literature references and conference papers. The randomised controlled trials, cohort study, controlled clinical trials of the IORT in unresectable locally advanced pancreatic cancer were searched. According to the inclusion criteria and exclusion criteria, after the extraction of literature and data, RevMan 5.3 software was used for meta-analysis. Results The total of 1 401 articles were retrieved, 7 met the inclusion criteria, including 1 for randomized controlled trials, 4 for cohort study, 2 for case-control study. 313 cases in the IORT group, 362 cases in the control group, and meta-analysis showed that IORT group was better than control group in overall survival (OS) (Z = 4.15, P < 0.000 1, RR = 2, 95 % CI 1.05-2.94). Because lack of complete data in local control rate, pain remission rate, complications, descriptive analysis was done, rather than meta-analysis. Conclusions IORT may improve the OS of patients with unresectable locally advanced pancreatic cancer and the local control rate, and effectively alleviate pain with favorale safety but it still needs high quality randomized controlled trials to confirm. Key words: Pancreatic neoplasms; Intraoperative radiotherapy; Locally advanced; Meta-analysis