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Adjuvant Chemoradiation Therapy for Pancreatic Cancer

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Pancreatic Cancer

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Abstract:

Despite newer treatment modalities, overall outcome for pancreatic cancer has changed very little during the past thirty years. Surgery remains the mainstay, but delivery of adjuvant postoperative therapy has been shown to be essential for any long-term survival. Large prospective randomized studies have revealed conflicting data on whether chemotherapy alone or combination chemoradiation is optimal. Unfortunately, marked discrepancies exist with patient selection as well as trial design among these studies, resulting in inadequate comparisons of their conclusions. Nevertheless, similar to other gastrointestinal malignancies, it appears that adjuvant combination chemoradiation is superior to chemotherapy alone when the data is critically analyzed. This critical examination of the published data to date is provided in the forthcoming chapter, along with an assessment of what is needed for future trials to determine the optimal adjuvant treatment modality and improve overall outcome for pancreatic cancer patients.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Medicine, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Naimish Pandya

  2. Department of Radiation Oncology, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Michael C. Garofalo

  3. Department of Radiation Oncology, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA

    William F. Regine

Authors
  1. Naimish Pandya
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  2. Michael C. Garofalo
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  3. William F. Regine
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Pandya, N., Garofalo, M.C., Regine, W.F. (2010). Adjuvant Chemoradiation Therapy for Pancreatic Cancer. In: Pancreatic Cancer. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-77498-5_44

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