Researchers from Japan have reported that patients with resected pancreatic cancer who receive Gemzar® (gemcitabine) have an increased disease-free survival compared with patients randomized to a control group. The details of this study appeared in the September 2009 issue of the British Journal of Cancer.[1] 

There will be an estimated 37,170 new cases of pancreatic cancer diagnosed in the United States in 2007 and 33,370 deaths from the disease. Pancreatic cancer is the fourth leading cause of cancer death in this country. Treatment for early pancreatic cancer typically includes surgery to remove as much of the cancer as possible. However, the relapse rate is high, and several studies have explored the use of adjuvant and neoadjuvant therapies.

Researchers from the Weill Cornell Medical College have reported that preoperative radiation therapy increased median survival from 12 to 23 months. Researchers from Germany have reported that adjuvant Gemzar improves median disease-free from 6.9 months to 13.4 months. Median overall survival was improved from 20.2 to 22.8 months by the use of Gemzar. More importantly, the five-year survival was improved from 9% in the control group to 21% in the Gemzar group for patients with early pancreatic cancer.

The current study involved 119 patients with resected pancreatic cancer. Patients were randomly allocated to receive Gemzar or no further therapy after surgery. Median disease-free survival was 11.4 months in the Gemzar group and 5.9 months in the control group. Median overall survival was 22.3 months in the Gemzar group and 18.4 months in the control group (p-0.19).

Comments: This study confirms the effectiveness of Gemzar in prolonging disease-free survival. It’s likely that the study was not powered sufficiently to detect a survival difference between the two groups.

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