Multimodality therapy for pancreatic cancer.
Neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy can be administered safely to patients with pancreatic cancer. Complete pathologic responses are rare, however, and the benefits of this approach compared with standard adjuvant therapy are uncertain. The only way to evaluate the efficacy of neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy is a prospective trial involving a uniform patient population comparing the results of neoadjuvant and adjuvant therapy and a cohort receiving surgery alone. Such a study can be designed in an ethically sound manner but requires the collaboration of numerous institutions and careful coordination to achieve statistically conclusive results. The future of pancreatic cancer research rests on the availability and rapid transfer of new therapies from the laboratory to clinical research.
Franko
Jan
J
Division of Surgical Oncology, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, 497 Scaife Hall, 3550 Terrace Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15261, USA.
Greer
Julia B
JB
Moran
Coleen M
CM
Khalid
Asif
A
Moser
A James
AJ
D003131:Combined Modality Therapy / Q000379:methods; D006801:Humans; D010190:Pancreatic Neoplasms / Q000628:therapy*; D016896:Treatment Outcome