Survival of cancer survivors with a new pancreatic cancer diagnosis

Background: Persons newly diagnosed with pancreas cancer and who have survived a previous cancer are often excluded from clinical trials, despite limited evidence about their prognosis. We examined the association between previous cancer and overall survival.

Methods: This US population-based cohort study included older adults (aged ≥66 years) diagnosed with pancreas cancer between 2005 and 2015 in the linked Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results-Medicare data. We used Cox proportional hazards models to estimate stage-specific effects of previous cancer on overall survival, adjusting for sociodemographic, treatment, and tumor characteristics.

Results: Of 32,783 patients, 18.7% were previously diagnosed with another cancer. The most common previous cancers included prostate (29.0%), breast (18.9%), or colorectal (9.7%) cancer. More than half of previous cancers (53.9%) were diagnosed 5 or more years prior to pancreas cancer diagnosis or at an in situ or localized stage (47.8%). The proportions of patients surviving 1, 3, and 5 years after pancreas cancer were nearly identical for those with and without previous cancer. Median survival in months was as follows for those with and without previous cancer respectively: 7 versus 8 (Stage 0/I), 10 versus 10 (Stage II), 7 versus 7 (Stage III), and 3 versus 2 (Stage IV). Cox models indicated that patients with previous cancer had very similar or statistically equivalent survival to those with no previous cancer.

Conclusions: Given nearly equivalent survival compared to those without previous cancer, cancer survivors newly diagnosed with pancreas cancer should be considered for inclusion in pancreas cancer clinical trials.