Treatment trends in metastatic pancreatic cancer patients: Is it time to change?

Since gemcitabine became the standard treatment for metastatic pancreatic adenocarcinoma, combination chemotherapy obtained conflicting impact on survival (OS).

To evaluate Italian treatment trends in metastatic pancreatic cancer.

Data on treatment outcome of 943 chemo-naive patients with pathological diagnosis of stage IV pancreatic adenocarcinoma treated between 1997 and 2007 in Italian centres were analysed.

Four treatment groups could be identified: (1) single agent gemcitabine (N=529); (2) gemcitabine-platinating agent doublets (N=105); (3) gemcitabine-free three-drug intraarterial combination (N=75); (4) four-drug gemcitabine-cisplatin-fluoropyrimidine based combinations (N=170). Median and actuarial 1 y OS of the whole population were 6.2 months and 20%, respectively. Gemcitabine (median OS 5.1 months) appeared significantly inferior to gemcitabine-free triplets (median OS 6.0 months; p=.04), gemcitabine-platinating agent doublets (median OS 7.4 months; p=.00001), or gemcitabine-based four drug combinations (median OS 9.1 months; p<.00001).

These data mirror the Italian clinical practice in the therapeutic management of pancreatic cancer and suggest that four-drug combination chemotherapy may be included amongst the candidate regimens for phase III testing.