[Palliative therapy of pancreatic adenocarcinoma]

The palliative therapy of pancreatic carcinoma consists of best supportive care (BSC) including nutritional and pain therapy, and antineoplastic remedies. This is complemented by interventional endoscopy aiming to treat obstructive jaundice and/or gastric or duodenal obstruction by implantation of endoprostheses. Pain therapy is standardized for the most part according to the WHO guidelines; nutrition of the cancer patient, however, is sometimes disregarded. For palliative chemotherapy, 5-fluorouracil and gemcitabine can be recommended. Combinations thereof with other cytostatic drugs or radiation are subject to ongoing studies. A variety of novel therapeutic concepts, e.g. immunomodulation or suicide gene therapy, have demonstrated good effects in animal studies. Unfortunately, very few of these have entered clinical studies (phase I and phase II). This will be the focus of future research in this field.