Chemotherapy for advanced pancreatic cancer: it may no longer be ignored

Two case histories are reported here in which a chemotherapeutic approach improved the clinical conditions of patients with advanced pancreatic cancer. Until recently, chemotherapy was considered ineffective in pancreatic cancer, and most oncologists treated these patients with best-supportive-care only. Enthusiasm for systemic therapy of advanced pancreatic cancer is again growing, spurred by the advent of new drugs and new treatment endpoints such as life quality and symptom palliation. Gemcitabine, the most intensively-investigated new drug in pancreatic cancer, has shown an advantage in both survival and clinical benefit over that of 5-fluorouracil (5-FU). Other new drugs such as taxanes have shown interesting levels of activity, and are deserving of further evaluation. Although these results are far from conclusive and are only partially satisfactory, they represent a significant step forward in the treatment of advanced pancreatic cancer.