Gemcitabine versus gemcitabine combined with cisplatin treatment locally advanced or metastatic pancreatic cancer: a retrospective analysis

Purpose: Gemcitabine is the most active agent to treat unresectable pancreatic cancer. The superiority of combining other drugs with cisplatin is still controversial; therefore, we performed a retrospective analysis of gemcitabine versus gemcitabine combined with cisplatin to determine the treatment outcomes for patients with locally advanced or metastatic pancreatic cancer.

Materials and methods: From 2001 to 2007, we enrolled 60 patients who were treated with gemcitabine or gemcitabine combined with cisplatin for locally advanced or metastatic pancreatic cancer. Gemcitabine 1, 000 mg/m(2) (G) was administrated at day 1 and day 8 every 3 weeks. Cisplatin 60 mg/m(2) was added at day 1 every 3 weeks to the gemcitabine schedule (GP).

Results: NUMBER OF G: GP was 34: 26, locally advanced to metastatic ratio was 35% to 65% in group G and 46% to 54% in group GP. Median follow up duration was 29 months. The median number of chemotherapy cycles was 4 (range: 2 approximately 11) for the G group, and 4 (range: 1 approximately 11) for the GP group. The response rate of the G and GP groups was 17% and 11%, respectively. The progression free survival (PFS) was 4.5 months and 2.8 months, respectively, for the G and GP groups. The overall survival (OS) was 10.7 and 8.7 months respectively, for the G and GP groups, but there is no statistically significant difference of the PFS (p=0.2396) and OS (p=0.4643) between the 2 groups. The hematological toxicity profile was similar (the grade III neutropenia and thrombocytopenia was 4.4% and 3.1%, respectively, in G group, and 7.5% and 2.8%, respectively, in the GP group). But non-hematological toxicities such as skin rash, abnormal liver function and nausea/vomiting were observed in 3 patients of the GP group. On the prognostic factor analysis, no factors predicted a longer PFS and OS for both the G and GP groups.

Conclusions: Gemcitabine single treatment might be more tolerable and it had the same efficacy compared to cisplatin combination treatment in this retrospective study.