Radiotherapy-centered multimodal treatment of unresectable pancreatic carcinoma

Multimodal treatment procedures, including intraoperative and external beam radiotherapy, chemotherapy and hyperthermotherapy, used for treatment of unresectable pancreatic carcinoma for the past two years have been described. Among the ten progressive cases where multimodal treatment was applied, marked reduction in tumor mass was observed in three cases. The cases receiving such treatment reported prolonged survival, the median survival period being 250 days as compared with 85.4 days in the non-multimodal group. The conclusion is that optimal palliative effects can be achieved by sustained application of both intraoperative and postoperative radiotherapy, hyperthermia and other techniques of multimodal therapy in cases of unresectable pancreatic carcinoma.