Elderly Pancreatic Adenocarcinoma Cancer Patients Could Benefit From Postoperative Chemotherapy

The study aim to investigate whether elderly patients with resectable pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) could benefit from postoperative chemotherapy.

This study selects the data of PDAC patients who were diagnosed between 2004 and 2014 from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results program. Median overall survival (mOS) is determined by Kaplan-Meier survival curves. Multivariate logistic regression analysis and hazard ratio are employed to assess the association among potential prognostic factors. Propensity score matching evaluation is used to reduce bias.

In total, there are 11,865 PDAC patients selected from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results database. Elderly PDAC patients have poor prognoses compared with younger (mOS, 15 vs 21 months). The possible reason might be that the elderly patients are less likely to receive postoperative chemotherapy. After propensity score matching, it is found that, for those who receive postoperative chemotherapy, although the mOS of older group is not as good as that of the younger group (mOS, 20 vs 23 months; 18-month survival rate: 53.4% vs 61.3%), the mOS of older group prolonged by postoperative chemotherapy is similar to that of younger group (9 vs 9 months).

Elderly PDAC patients (≥70 years) might benefit from the currently used postoperative chemotherapy regimens.