Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy in Resectable Pancreatic Cancer

摘要

Despite the truly encouraging results there are considerable limitations of this study which have to be discussed. Resected carcinomas of both groups should have been compared regarding the International Union against Cancer (UICC) classification of pancreatic cancer. Among the patients resected after Gemcitabine monotherapy 75% had positive lymph nodes detected on histology whereas only 56% of the patients who received combined treatment with Cis-platin showed disease-positive lymph nodes. This might reflect a preoperatively more advanced tumour stadium in the Gemcitabine monotherapy group and may therefore result in poorer prognosis and decrease of curative resection in this group. So the stated benefit of combined chemotherapy should include an initial (e.g., endoscopic ultrasound, positron emission tomography-computed tomography) and postoperative evaluation of tumour stage.