An Update From The Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium

Pancreatic cancer remains a devastating and poorly understood malignancy and represents a major therapeutic challenge in 2008.

The annual incidence rate of pancreatic cancer is almost identical to the mortality rate; approximately 37,000 new cases are diagnosed each year in the United States, and approximately 33,000 patients die from this disease. Poor prognosis has been attributed to an inability to diagnose pancreatic cancer at an early stage, ie, when the tumor is resectable.

Pancreatic cancer has a propensity toward early vascular dissemination and spread to the regional lymph nodes. Up to 60% of patients have advanced pancreatic cancer at the time of diagnosis. Advanced disease is associated with a dismal outcome, with a median survival of 3-6 months.

On the basis of encouraging results of a single-center study in resected pancreatic cancer with cisplatin, 5-FU, and alpha-interferon with concurrent radiation therapy (XRT), the American College of Surgeons Oncology Group (ACOSOG) launched a phase 2 trial (ACOSOG Z05031) designed to validate this protocol in a multicenter setting.[1] Treatment is outlined in Figure 1.

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