A patient with unresectable advanced pancreatic cancer achieving long-term survival with gemcitabine chemotherapy

A 68-year-old female visited a local clinic with epigastralgia. A routine laboratory test revealed jaundice and liver dysfunction. She was referred to this hospital. Abdominal computed tomography (CT) and endoscopic retrograde cholangio-pancreatography (ERCP) revealed that the density of the entire pancreas had decreased, and showed dilatation of the common bile duct (CBD) and the main pancreatic duct (MPD). Pancreatic cancer was diagnosed by cytological examination analyzing the pancreatic juice obtained by ERCP. When jaundice had decreased the tumor was observed via laparotomy. No ascites, liver metastasis, or peritoneal dissemination was observed. The entire pancreas was a hard mass, and a needle biopsy was obtained from the head, body and tail of the pancreas. These biopsies diagnosed a poorly differentiated adenocarcinoma. Hepaticojejunostomy was thus performed, and postoperative progress was good. Chemotherapy with 1000 mg/body per week of gemcitabine was administered beginning 15 d postoperatively. However, the patient suffered relatively severe side effects, and it was necessary to change the dosing schedule of gemcitabine. Abdominal CT revealed a complete response (CR) after 3 treatments. Therefore, weekly chemotherapy was stopped and was changed to monthly administration. To date, for 4 years after chemotherapy, the tumor has not reappeared.