Palliative and adjuvant regional chemotherapy in pancreatic cancer

To improve the dismal prognosis of patients (pts) with pancreatic cancer we treated 32 patients with non-resectable (UICC III, 17 pts; UICC IV, 15 pts—group 1) and 20 patients with resected (UICC I, 1 pt; UICC II, 3 pts; UICC III, 16 pts—group 2) pancreatic cancer with palliative (group I) and adjuvant post-operative (group II) coeliac axis intra-arterial cyclic infusions (CAI). CAI consisted of mitoxantrone 10 mg/m2 on day 1, folinic acid 170 mg/m2 and 5-FU 600 mg/m2 during days 2–4, and cis-platinum 60 mg/m2 on day 5 for up to 11 (group I) or six (group II) cycles. In a total of 211 cycles toxicities at the level of WHO III occurred in 0–6% and of WHO IV in 0%. The median survival times, compared with institutional historical controls (treated vs controls), were 12 vs 4.8 months in UICC III (P<0.006) and 4 vs 2.9 months in UICC IV (P<0.05) group I pts, and 21 vs 9.3 months in group II (P<0.0003). Hepatic disease progression appeared to be suppressed with CAI, which also appears to be effective for palliative and adjuvant treatment in non-resectable and resected pancreatic cancer.