Background/purpose: We aimed to investigate predictors of survival in patients with resectable locally invasive pancreatic cancer.
Methods: The patient cohort consisted of 55 patients with locally invasive pancreatic cancer (International Union Against Cancer [UICC] stage III in 36 patients and stage IV in 19) who had undergone resection. The patients were informed about the advantages and the adverse effects of postoperative chemotherapy, and prospectively selected either observation alone or postoperative chemotherapy. The postoperative chemotherapy regimen options were: (1) intraarterial chemotherapy alone, (2) systemic chemotherapy alone, or (3) intraarterial chemotherapy combined with systemic chemotherapy.
Results: Overall 1-year and 2-year survival rates after resection were 40.5% and 13.5%, respectively. Median survival time was 10.9 months. Twenty-nine patients (52.7%) received postoperative chemotherapy. On univariate analysis, only postoperative chemotherapy was associated with long-term survival (P < 0.01). In the patients with postoperative chemotherapy, the 1-year survival rate and MST were 61.7% and 16.3 months, compared with 20.1% and 7.9 months in the patients without postoperative chemotherapy. Multivariate analysis also showed that only postoperative chemotherapy was identified as an independent survival factor.
Conclusions: It was suggested that postoperative chemotherapy was essential for the improvement of survival in patients with locally invasive pancreatic cancer.