Survival benefit of adjuvant chemoradiotherapy for positive or close resection margin after curative resection of pancreatic adenocarcinoma

Byoung Hyuck Kim, Kyubo Kim, Jin Young Jang, Wooil Kwon, Hongbeom Kim, Kyung Hun Lee, Do Youn Oh, Haeryoung Kim, Kyung Bun Lee, Eui Kyu Chie

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

2 Scopus citations

Abstract

Background: This study was conducted to identify patients who may benefit from adjuvant chemoradiotherapy (CRT) for positive or close resection margin (RM) after curative resection of pancreatic adenocarcinoma. Methods: From 2004 to 2015, total of 472 patients with pancreatic adenocarcinoma underwent curative resection. After excluding patients with RM > 2 mm or unknown, remaining 217 patients were retrospectively analyzed. Forty-six (21.2%) patients were treated with adjuvant chemotherapy alone (CTx; mainly gemcitabine-based), 142 (65.4%) with adjuvant CRT (mainly upfront), and 29 (13.4%) patients didn't receive any adjuvant therapy (noTx group). Results: Locoregional recurrence rate was significantly lower in the CRT group (43.7%) than in the CTx group (71.7%) or noTx group (65.5%) (p = 0.001). Significant survival benefits of CRT over CTx (HR 0.602, p = 0.020 for overall survival (OS); HR 0.599, p = 0.016 for time to any recurrence (TTR)) were demonstrated in multivariate analysis. CRT group had more 5-year survivors than other groups. In the subgroup analysis, such benefits of adjuvant CRT over CTx was observed only in patients with head tumor & vascular RM > 0.5 mm, but not in patients with body/tail tumor or vascular RM ≤ 0.5 mm. In the CRT group, radiation dose≥54 Gy was significantly associated with better TTR and OS. Conclusions: Adjuvant CRT could improve TTR and OS compared to adjuvant CTx alone in patients with close RM under 2 mm. Radiation dose escalation may be beneficial when feasible. Modern CRT regimen–based randomized evidence is needed for these high-risk patients.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)2122-2130
Number of pages9
JournalEuropean Journal of Surgical Oncology
Volume46
Issue number11
DOIs
StatePublished - Nov 2020

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Elsevier Ltd, BASO ~ The Association for Cancer Surgery, and the European Society of Surgical Oncology

Keywords

  • Adjuvant chemoradiotherapy
  • Pancreatic cancer
  • Radiation dose
  • Resection margin

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Survival benefit of adjuvant chemoradiotherapy for positive or close resection margin after curative resection of pancreatic adenocarcinoma'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this