[Octreotide in the treatment of advanced pancreatic tumor. Preliminary study]

Data from experimental studies suggest that octreotide, the long acting somatostatin analogue, improves survival of animals with pancreatic cancer. To assess the antitumour effect of octreotide, a randomized trial was performed comparing octreotide with supportive care in advanced pancreatic cancer patients. All patients, aged 59-75 years, were not liable to radical surgical treatment and were not submitted to other treatments (chemo and/or radiotherapy).

Six patients were enrolled, 4 of these treated with octreotide (500 micrograms two times a day subcutaneous for six months) and the other 2 were inserted a control group.

The patients treated with octreotide showed a significant advantage in quality of life (restored appetite, improvement of digestion and intestine function, remission of abdominal pain and preservation of baseline body weight) with a mean > 80 of karnofsky performance score. Monitoring of tumour size changes (US-TC) over the 6 months study period, showed slackened neoplastic growth in all treated patients, whereas neoplasm grew according to an almost exponential trend in untreated patients. Also survival was better in treated patients: in particular, 2 patients out of 4 who completed the study underwent follow-up until they died 12 and 16 months after beginning of treatment, respectively. Karnofsky performance score was particularly high in both patients. This supports the view that octreotide is endowed with antiproliferative activity.

In conclusion octreotide therapy seems to confer a survival benefit and a better quality of life in advanced pancreatic tumour. Additional studies are needed to confirm these results and to clarify other questions about dose and somatostatin receptors in this kind of tumour.