Pathological treatment response has different prognostic implications for pancreatic cancer patients treated with...

Pathological treatment effect of resected pancreatic adenocarcinoma after neoadjuvant therapy has prognostic implications. The impact for patients who received chemotherapy alone or chemoradiotherapy is not well defined.

Patients with localized pancreatic adenocarcinoma who had pancreatectomy after neoadjuvant therapy at 3 centers from 2011 to 2017 were retrospectively analyzed. The chemotherapy and chemoradiotherapy groups were evaluated separately.

Of 525 patients, 148 received neoadjuvant chemotherapy and 377 received chemoradiotherapy. The chemoradiotherapy group had a better treatment effect (score 0: 10%, score 1: 30%, score 2: 42%, and score 3: 18%) than the chemotherapy group (score 0: 2%, score 1: 8%, score 2: 35%, and score 3: 55%) (P < .001). Median overall survival was similar between the 2 groups (25.8 vs 26.4 months). Median overall survival for score 0/1, 2, or 3 was 72.2, 38.5, and 20.0 months in the chemotherapy group and 37.9, 24.5, and 19.0 months in the chemoradiotherapy group. Score 2 in the chemotherapy group was associated with better overall survival compared to score 3 (adjusted hazard ratio: 0.49, P = .005), whereas only combined score 0/1 reached significance over score 2 for the chemoradiotherapy group (hazard ratio: 0.63, P = .006).

The prognostic significance of pathological treatment effect for localized pancreatic adenocarcinoma differs for patients receiving neoadjuvant chemotherapy or neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy.