Current Clinical Trials

Note: Some citations in the text of this section are followed by a level of evidence. The PDQ editorial boards use a formal ranking system to help the reader judge the strength of evidence linked to the reported results of a therapeutic strategy. (Refer to the PDQ summary on Levels of Evidence for more information.)

Patients with stage III pancreatic cancer have tumors that are technically unresectable because of local vessel impingement or invasion by tumor. These patients may benefit from palliation of biliary obstruction by endoscopic, surgical, or radiological means.[1]

Three trials attempted to look at issues of combined modality therapy versus radiation therapy alone (the Gastrointestinal Tumor Study Group's GITSG-9173 trial, the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group's E-8282 trial, and the Federation Francophone de Cancerologie Digestive-Société Française de Radiothérapie Oncologie group's FFCD-SFRO trial ).[2-4] The three trials had substantial deficiencies in design or analysis. Until recently, the standard of practice has been to give chemoradiation therapy, and that was based on the first two studies; however, with the preliminary publication of the third study, standard practice has changed.

Prior to the use of gemcitabine for patients with locally advanced or metastatic pancreatic cancer, investigators from the GITSG randomly assigned 106 patients with locally advanced pancreatic adenocarcinoma to receive external beam radiation therapy (EBRT) (60 Gy) alone or to receive concurrent EBRT (either 40 Gy or 60 Gy) plus bolus fluorouracil (5-FU).[2][Level of evidence: 1iiA] The study was stopped early when the chemoradiation therapy arms were found to have better efficacy. The 1-year survival was 11% for patients who received EBRT alone compared with 38% for patients who received chemoradiation with 40 Gy and 36% for patients who received chemoradiation with 60 Gy. After an additional 88 patients were enrolled in the combined modality arms, there was a trend toward improved survival with 60 Gy EBRT plus 5-FU, but the difference in time-to-progression and overall survival (OS) was not statistically significant when compared to the 40 Gy arm.[5]

In contrast, investigators from the ECOG randomly assigned 114 patients to radiation therapy (59.4 Gy) alone or with concurrent infusional 5-FU (1,000 mg/m² daily on days 2 through 5 and days 28 through 31) plus mitomycin (10 mg/m² on day 2) and found no difference in OS between the two groups.[3]

Whether chemoradiation therapy should be considered for patients with stage III pancreatic cancer is controversial. Preliminary results from a study of the FFCD-SFRO were presented in abstract form at the 2006 American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting.[4] Patients with locally advanced pancreatic cancer were randomly assigned to receive either concurrent chemoradiation therapy followed by gemcitabine or gemcitabine alone. The trial was halted because of poor accrual after 109 of the planned 176 patients were enrolled. In a preliminary report with a median 16-month follow-up, patients who received chemoradiation followed by gemcitabine had a median survival of 8.4 months versus 14.3 months for the group who received gemcitabine alone (stratified log-rank, P = .014).

Standard treatment options:

1. Palliative surgical biliary and/or gastric bypass, percutaneous radiologic biliary stent placement, or endoscopic biliary stent placement.[6,7]



2. Chemotherapy with gemcitabine.

Treatment options under clinical evaluation:

1. For patients with technically unresectable tumors, clinical trials evaluating novel agents in combination with chemotherapy or chemoradiation therapy (RTOG-PA-0020 is one example).



2. Intraoperative radiation therapy and/or implantation of radioactive sources.[8,9]

Check for U.S. clinical trials from NCI's PDQ Cancer Clinical Trials Registry that are now accepting patients with stage III pancreatic cancer. The list of clinical trials can be further narrowed by location, drug, intervention, and other criteria.

General information about clinical trials is also available from the NCI Web site.

References

1. Sohn TA, Lillemoe KD, Cameron JL, et al.: Surgical palliation of unresectable periampullary adenocarcinoma in the 1990s. J Am Coll Surg 188 (6): 658-66; discussion 666-9, 1999.  [PUBMED Abstract]
   
   
2. A multi-institutional comparative trial of radiation therapy alone and in combination with 5-fluorouracil for locally unresectable pancreatic carcinoma. The Gastrointestinal Tumor Study Group. Ann Surg 189 (2): 205-8, 1979.  [PUBMED Abstract]
   
   
3. Cohen SJ, Dobelbower R Jr, Lipsitz S, et al.: A randomized phase III study of radiotherapy alone or with 5-fluorouracil and mitomycin-C in patients with locally advanced adenocarcinoma of the pancreas: Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group study E8282. Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys 62 (5): 1345-50, 2005.  [PUBMED Abstract]
   
   
4. Chauffert B, Mornex F, Bonnetain F, et al.: Phase III trial comparing initial chemoradiotherapy (intermittent cisplatin and infusional 5-FU) followed by gemcitabine vs. gemcitabine alone in patients with locally advanced non metastatic pancreatic cancer: a FFCD-SFRO study. [Abstract] J Clin Oncol 24 (Suppl 18): A-4008, 180s, 2006. 
   
   
5. Moertel CG, Frytak S, Hahn RG, et al.: Therapy of locally unresectable pancreatic carcinoma: a randomized comparison of high dose (6000 rads) radiation alone, moderate dose radiation (4000 rads + 5-fluorouracil), and high dose radiation + 5-fluorouracil: The Gastrointestinal Tumor Study Group. Cancer 48 (8): 1705-10, 1981.  [PUBMED Abstract]
   
   
6. van den Bosch RP, van der Schelling GP, Klinkenbijl JH, et al.: Guidelines for the application of surgery and endoprostheses in the palliation of obstructive jaundice in advanced cancer of the pancreas. Ann Surg 219 (1): 18-24, 1994.  [PUBMED Abstract]
   
   
7. Baron TH: Expandable metal stents for the treatment of cancerous obstruction of the gastrointestinal tract. N Engl J Med 344 (22): 1681-7, 2001.  [PUBMED Abstract]
   
   
8. Tepper JE, Noyes D, Krall JM, et al.: Intraoperative radiation therapy of pancreatic carcinoma: a report of RTOG-8505. Radiation Therapy Oncology Group. Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys 21 (5): 1145-9, 1991.  [PUBMED Abstract]
   
   
9. Reni M, Panucci MG, Ferreri AJ, et al.: Effect on local control and survival of electron beam intraoperative irradiation for resectable pancreatic adenocarcinoma. Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys 50 (3): 651-8, 2001.  [PUBMED Abstract]
   
   

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