Localized Pancreatic Cancer: Multidisciplinary Management

Abstract

Pancreatic cancer is an aggressive cancer that continues to have single-digit 5-year mortality rates despite advancements in the field. Surgery remains the only curative treatment; however, most patients present with late-stage disease deemed unresectable, either due to extensive local vascular involvement or the presence of distant metastasis. Resection guidelines that include a borderline resectable group, as well as advancements in neoadjuvant chemotherapy and radiation that improve resectability of locally advanced disease, may improve outcomes for patients with more invasive disease. Multi-agent chemotherapy regimens fluorouracil, leucovorin, irinotecan, and oxaliplatin (FOLFIRINOX) and nab-paclitaxel with gemcitabine improved response rates and survival in metastatic pancreatic cancer and are now being used in earlier stages for patients with localized potentially resectable and unresectable disease, with goals of downstaging tumors to allow margin-negative resection and reducing systemic recurrence. Chemoradiotherapy, although still controversial for both resectable and unresectable pancreatic cancer, is being used in the context of contemporary chemotherapy backbone regimens, and novel radiation techniques such as stereotactic body frame radiation therapy (SBRT) are studied on the premise of maintaining or improving efficacy and reducing treatment duration. Patient selection for optimal treatment designation is currently provided by multidisciplinary tumor boards, but biomarker discovery, in blood, tumors, or through novel imaging, is an area of intense research. Results to date suggest that some patients with unresectable disease at the outset have survival rates as good as those with initially resectable disease if able to undergo surgical resection. Long-term follow-up and improved clinical trials options are needed to determine optimal treatment modalities for patients with localized pancreatic cancer.