A recent study carried out by researchers in Italy has revealed that a combination therapy involving four chemotherapy drugs may improve survival and outcome in patients with advanced pancreatic cancer. The drugs in question include gemcitabine, cisplatin, epirubicin and fluorouracil, collectively referred to as PEFG.
Pancreatic cancer is the fourth leading cause of cancer death in the USA and strikes approximately five out of 100,000 people every year. No effective screening program exists to detect this illness and it is rarely diagnosed in the early stages. Survival outcome is poor and patients usually die within a year of being diagnosed.
The study, which was carried out at the San Raffaele Institute in Milan, revealed that patients who were treated with the combined PEFG chemotherapy had double the survival rates than patients treated with gemcitabine alone, which is currently the standard therapy for pancreatic cancer.
“We have shown that patients allocated PEGF had a more favourable outcome in terms of progression-free survival and overall survival than did those allocated standard treatment with gemcitabine,” said Reni.
A total of 99 patients with pancreatic cancer aged 18 to 70 years were involved in the study. Some 52 patients were treated with PEFG, the remaining 47 were given gemcitabine MONOTHERAPY.
It was found that pateints treated with the PEFG combination therapy inceased the probability of progression-free survival at 4 months by 54% in comparison to those treated with just gemcitabine. A 2 year follow-up study revealed that 60% of patients on PEFG were still alive compared with only 20% of patients that received gemcitabine monotherapy.
“A larger confirmatory trial may be needed before this combination regimen could be regarded as standard treatment,” added Reni. However, he noted “PEFG had manageable toxic effects, did not negatively affect quality of life, and maintained a statistically and clinically relevant outcome advantage compared with standard treatment.”