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Increased Rate of Complete Pathologic Response After Neoadjuvant FOLFIRINOX for BRCA Mutation Carriers with Borderline Resectable Pancreatic Cancer

  • Pancreatic Tumors
  • Published:
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Abstract

Background

Neoadjuvant FOLFIRINOX is a standard-of-care treatment for BRPC patients. Patients with gBRCAm who have demonstrated improved response to platinum-based chemotherapy may have impaired homologous repair deficiency. This study aimed to describe the pathologic complete response rate and long-term survival for patients with germline BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation (gBRCAm) and borderline resectable pancreatic cancer (BRPC) treated with neoadjuvant FOLFIRINOX.

Methods

A dual-center retrospective analysis was performed. Patients who had BRPC treated with neoadjuvant FOLFIRINOX followed by curative resection were identified from clinical databases. Pathologic complete response was defined as no viable tumor cells present in the specimen. Common founder Jewish germline BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation was determined for available patients.

Results

The 61 BRPC patients in this study underwent resection after neoadjuvant FOLFIRINOX. Analysis of BRCA mutation was performed for 39 patients, and 9 patients were found to be BRCA2 germline mutation carriers. The pathologic complete response rate was 44.4% for the gBRCAm patients and 10% for the BRCA non-carriers (p = 0.009). The median disease-free survival was not reached for the gBRCAm patients and was 7 months for the BRCA non-carriers (p = 0.03). The median overall survival was not reached for the gBRCAm patients and was 32 months for the BRCA non-carriers (p = 0.2). After a mean follow-up period of 33.7 months, all eight patients with pathologic complete response were disease-free.

Conclusions

The study showed that gBRCAm patients with BRPC have an increased chance for pathologic complete response and prolonged survival after neoadjuvant FOLFIRINOX. The results support the benefit of exposing gBRCAm patients to platinum-based chemotherapy early in the course of the disease. Neoadjuvant FOLFIRINOX should be considered for BRCA carriers who have resectable pancreatic cancer.

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Author notes

  1. Talia Golan and Alex Barenboim are equally contributed to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Oncology, Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer, Israel

    Talia Golan MD, Einat Shacham-Shmueli MD & Naama Halpern MD

  2. Liver Surgery Unit, Department of Surgery, Tel-Aviv Medical Center, Tel Aviv, Israel

    Alex Barenboim MD, Guy Lahat MD, Ido Nachmany MD, Yacov Goykhman MD, Joseph M. Klausner MD & Nir Lubezky MD

  3. Institute of Pathology, Tel-Aviv Medical Center, Tel Aviv, Israel

    Eli Brazowski MD

  4. Institute of Oncology, Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel-Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel

    Ravit Geva MD & Ido Wolf MD

  5. Department of Surgery, Sheba Medical Center, The Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel-Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel

    Yuri Goldes MD

  6. Department of Surgery, Shaarey Zedek Medical Center, Jerusalem, Israel

    Menahem Ben-Haim MD

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  1. Talia Golan MD
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Contributions

Talia Golan and Alex Barenboim are equal contributors.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Nir Lubezky MD.

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Disclosure

Dr. Talia Golan received grants/research supports from Astra Zeneca and MSD Merck, consultation fees from Abbvie, Astra Zeneca, Teva. Bayer and MSD Merck, and receipt of speakers bureau from Abbvie. The remaining authors had no conflicts of interest.

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Golan, T., Barenboim, A., Lahat, G. et al. Increased Rate of Complete Pathologic Response After Neoadjuvant FOLFIRINOX for BRCA Mutation Carriers with Borderline Resectable Pancreatic Cancer. Ann Surg Oncol 27, 3963–3970 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1245/s10434-020-08469-8

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