ABSTRACT
Background: FOLFIRINOX is a standard first-line treatment for advanced pancreatic cancer (aPC) and no accepted second-line regimen exists. Material & methods: We enrolled 71 aPC patients progressed to modified FOLFIRINOX (mFOLFIRINOX) treated with second-line chemotherapy. Results: Five partial responses (7.1%) and 19 (27.1%) disease stabilizations were reported. After a median follow-up of 20.1 months, median progression-free survival was 2.5 months (95% CI: 2.1–2.9 months) and median overall survival was 6.2 months (95% CI: 5.3–7.1 months). At multivariate analysis, CA19.9 level ≥59 upper normal limit resulted associated with worse survival (hazard ratio: 2.32; 95% CI: 1.12–4.78; p = 0.023). Conclusion: Salvage chemotherapy could be useful for a subgroup of aPC patients. Prognostic factors might be helpful to identify patients with greater benefit.
Financial & competing interests disclosure
The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.
No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.
Ethical conduct of research
The authors state that they have obtained appropriate institutional review board approval or have followed the principles outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki for all human or animal experimental investigations. In addition, for investigations involving human subjects, informed consent has been obtained from the participants involved.