Background/aim: During recent years, a survival advantage was reported for first-line treatment of advanced pancreatic cancer with two new regimens, FOLFIRINOX and gemcitabine/nab-paclitaxel, over gemcitabine monotherapy. Gemcitabine/nab-paclitaxel administration on days 1, 8 and 15 of a 4-week cycle is associated with some practical disadvantages. We adopted a biweekly regimen with the same dose density.
Patients and methods: Patients with Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance status 0-2 diagnosed with advanced histologically or cytologically confirmed pancreatic cancer and no prior treatment were included in the study. Study combination included 1.5 g/m2 gemcitabine and 175 mg/m2 nab-paclitaxel given every 2 weeks. Survival analysis was performed using the Kaplan-Meier method.
Results: Forty-six patients were treated with this regimen. Adverse events were similar to those of the original regimen. Median progression-free and overall survival were 5 and 10 months, respectively.
Conclusion: Biweekly gemcitabine/nab-paclitaxel seems to have a similar safety and efficacy profile as the original regimen.
Keywords: Pancreatic cancer; biweekly; convenient; gemcitabine; modified regimen; nab-paclitaxel.
Copyright© 2018, International Institute of Anticancer Research (Dr. George J. Delinasios), All rights reserved.