For patients with resectable tumors, resection and

survival rates after neoadjuvant therapy are similar to the ones observed in “up-front” resected tumors that are treated by adjuvant therapy. Thus, in spite of decades of investigation of neoadjuvant therapy in pancreatic cancer, there is currently no evidence to support its routine use in clinical practice. However, the available data suggest that patients with locally advanced and/or unresectable tumors should be included in neoadjuvant clinical trials and subsequently be evaluated for resection (31). Adjuvant radiotherapy The high incidence of locoregional and systemic failure after resection in pancreatic cancer indicates the need for effective adjuvant Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical Selleckchem Pifithrin-�� treatment Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical (8). The role of adjuvant radiotherapy is controversial due to the conflicting results from the randomized controlled trials (Table 2). Table 2

Selected studies of randomized and non randomized adjuvant trials in pancreatic cancer The Gastro-intestinal Tumor Study Group (GITSG) conducted first randomized trial in 1980’s to evaluate the role of adjuvant CRT in resected pancreatic cancer. Forty-nine patients after R0 resection were randomized to CRT Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical versus observation (32). Radiotherapy was delivered to 40 Gy in 20 fractions with a planned 2-week break after 20 Gy. Bolus fluorouracil (5-FU) was given concurrently and two more cycles after radiotherapy. The treatment arm yielded significantly longer median OS (20 vs. 11 months) and 2-year OS (42% vs. 15%) than the observation arm. Due to this significant improvement in survival, thirty additional patients were treated by the GITSG in a nonrandomized Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical fashion using an identical CRT regimen. The outcome was similar to the treatment arm in the randomized trial (33). Thus, the adjuvant CRT became a standard treatment option for patients with resected pancreatic cancer in North America. In contrast, the adjuvant chemotherapy is considered the standard care for patients with resected pancreatic

cancer in Europe because the subsequent randomized trials did Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical not confirm the benefit of adjuvant CRT upon survival (34),(36),(41). In the European Organization of Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) study, 218 those patients with pancreatic or periampullary cancer were randomized to CRT versus observation after resection (34). The RT was delivered in the same fashion as in the GITSG trial. Infusion 5-FU was substituted for bolus 5-FU and no maintenance chemotherapy was administered. The median survival in the subset of patients with pancreatic cancer was 17.1 months in the CRT arm versus 12.6 months in the observation arm, a difference that did not reach statistical significance (P = 0.099). An update of this trial with longer median follow up of 11.7 years further confirmed the absence of a statistical significant advantage for adjuvant CRT (35).