Future prospects of radiotherapy in pancreatic cancer

To clarify the role of radiation therapy in the treatment of carcinoma of the pancreas studies with radiotherapy alone, combined interventional or concurrent radio-chemotherapy are reviewed. It is shown that in the case of inoperable tumour radiotherapy alone is inadequate, but by the means of a combination of chemotherapy, external beam or interventional (intra-operative, interstitial) irradiation, improvements in local control rates and median survival can be achieved. Following so-called curative resection, a number of studies have shown that adjuvant radio-chemotherapy or interventional treatments possibly prolong survival.