Background: Recent studies give rise to the hypothesis, that adjuvant chemoradioimmunotherapy with 5-fluorouracil (5-FU), cisplatin and interferon-alpha (IFN-alpha) might be a possible new treatment of pancreatic cancer in resected patients. We report the up-to-now experience at our institution.
Patients and methods: Eleven patients with histological diagnosis of localized carcinoma of the pancreas (n=7) or periampullary (n=4) were prospectively analyzed. Four patients were deemed unresectable because of local invasion of adjacent organs (neoadjuvant setting) and seven patients underwent curative resection (adjuvant setting). Eight patients were classified as T3 carcinomas and three T4 carcinomas. Fifty-five per cent (6/11) of the patients presented with positive lymph node involvement. One histological Grade I, six Grade II and three Grade III were detected. External conformal irradiation to a total dose of 50.4 Gy with 1.8 Gy per day was delivered. All patients received a concomitant chemotherapy with continuous 5-FU 200 mg/m2 per day on 28 treatment days and intravenous bolus cisplatin 30 mg/m2 per week (Day 2, 9, 16, 23, 30). A recombinant r-IFN-alpha was administered on three days weekly during Week one to five of the radiotherapy course as subcutanous injections with 3*3 Mio. I.U. weekly.
Results: The four-year overall survival rate for all patients was 55%. In the neoadjuvant group, three of four patients died due to progressive disease; in the adjuvant group, combined chemoradioimmunotherapy lead to controlled disease in five of seven patients. The overall toxicity was well-managed.
Conclusion: Our data strengthens the hypothesis of concomitant chemoradioimmunotherapy with 5-FU, IFN-alpha and cisplatin as a possible new treatment of pancreatic cancer in resected patients.