Neoadjuvant chemotherapy improves outcomes of chemoradiation therapy for locally advanced pancreatic cancer

Abstract

4036 Background: Two-thirds of all pancreatic cancer patients have radiographically detectable metastatic disease at the time of diagnosis. Most of the remaining patients have locally advanced, unresectable disease that is typically treated with either chemoradiation or chemotherapy alone. We explored the possible benefit of the use of consolidative chemoradiation after induction chemotherapy. Methods: Between December 1993 and October 2005, 318 patients with locally advanced, non-metastatic, pancreatic cancer were treated at our institution with concurrent chemoradiation therapy. All patients underwent CT staging and biopsy confirmed adenocarcinoma. 245 patients received chemoradiation (CR) as initial treatment while 73 patients received a median of 2.5 months of induction chemotherapy prior to chemoradiation (CCR). Radiosensitizers included 5FU (42%), gemcitabine (39%) and capecitabine (19%) and most patients (88%) received 30 Gy of radiation therapy. The most common induction chemotherapy regimens were gemcitabine and cisplatin (73%) and gemcitabine alone (15%). Results: All statistics are actuarial and calculated from date of initial treatment. Median follow-up was 5.5 months (range 1–63 months). For all patients, overall survival was 9.0 months and 2-year survival was 8%. Age, gender, histology, grade, radiation fractionation and concurrent chemotherapy regimen had no impact on outcomes on univariate analysis. However, overall survival was 8.5 months in the CR group and 11.9 months in the CCR group (p = 0.0004). Median time to local progression was 6.0 months in the CR group and 8.4 in the CCR group (p = 0.0055). Median time to distant progression was 5.8 months in the CR group and 9.5 months in the CCR group (p=0.0136). Conclusions: In one of the largest series of locally advanced pancreatic cancer patients, the use of induction chemotherapy followed by chemoradiation seems to prolong median survival over initial treatment with chemoradiation. By excluding patients who progress rapidly during induction chemotherapy, this approach presumably selects patients most likely to benefit from a local treatment modality. This strategy merits prospective evaluation. [Table: see text]