Because of its location, cancers on the pancreas may invade and wrap around nearby veins and arteries in the abdomen.

When these vessels become involved, surgery to remove the cancer, which is typically the standard treatment, becomes significantly more difficult and sometimes impossible.

Researchers at Fox Chase Cancer Center have identified a way to safely shrink the tumour, pulling it away from these vessels and allowing patients undergo potentially curative surgery.

Neoadjuvant therapy is treatment given prior to cancer surgery in effort to make tumours resectable, or surgically removable.

For patients with pancreatic cancer that is borderline resectable or unresectable as a result of vessel involvement, neoadjuvant therapy with chemotherapy and/or radiation therapy is standard.

Lora Wang, MD, a resident in the department of radiation oncology at Fox Chase, and colleagues found that giving extra boosts of radiation therapy to the tumour areas that are dangerously involved with the major vessels improved the rate of surgical resection in these patients.

Their findings are published in the journal Practical Radiation Oncology.

Approximately 48,000 people are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer every year, and only about 6% of newly-diagnosed patients live for more than 5 years.

Less than one out of five pancreatic cancers appear to be confined to the pancreas at diagnosis, and even fewer turn out to be truly resectable.

“In patients with non-metastatic pancreatic cancer, the tumor’s involvement with the nearby vessels is what determines whether or not a tumour is resectable,” Wang said.

“Some small vessels can be removed surgically without issue, but there are many important veins and arteries in the abdomen that cannot be removed easily or at all. Our practice is to give patients with borderline resectable or unresectable cancer chemotherapy and/or radiation therapy first in hopes that their tumour will shrink so they can proceed to surgery.”

The researchers evaluated patients with borderline resectable and locally advanced pancreatic cancer who were treated with neoadjuvant chemotherapy and radiation therapy to determine if the “vessel boost” improved the rate of curative surgery.

The study included 104 patients: 23 received a vessel boost and the remaining 81 did not.

The median standard dose of radiation was 50.4 Gray (Gy).

All patients also received concurrent chemotherapy Patients who received the vessel boost received a median dose of 56 Gy, with the extra being delivered to the areas involved with the vessels.

They found that patients who received the vessel boost were more likely to undergo surgical resection compared with the patients who received only the standard dose of radiation.

In addition, there was no difference in side effects between the two groups.

Wang also said that patients who show evidence of disease progression or metastatic disease during upfront chemotherapy and/or radiation therapy can be spared a major surgery.

Source: Fox Chase Cancer Center