Extended survival with metastatic pancreatic cancer under fruquintinib treatment after failed chemotherapy: Two case reports

Abstract

BACKGROUND Pancreatic cancer is a highly malignant disease. After decades of treatment progress, the current five-year survival rate for patients is still less than 10%. For later-line treatment, the treatment options are even more limited. Anti-angiogenic drugs can improve progression-free survival in patients with advanced pancreatic cancer. Preclinical data show that fruquintinib might improve the prognosis of advanced pancreatic cancer by targeting angiogenesis and lymphopoiesis, improving the abnormal vascular structure, and modulating the tumour immune microenvironment. CASE SUMMARY We present two cases of third-line fruquintinib monotherapy that brought an extraprolonged progress-free survival (PFS) of 10 months. Patient 1 took adjuvant gemcitabine-based and first-line nab-paclitaxel-based chemotherapy and then used local radiotherapy combined with programmed cell death 1 receptor (PD-1). Each line lasted approximately 7 months. Moreover, the patient took third-line fruquintinib, which was followed by stable disease for 10 months, during which no additional adverse effect was observed. The patient later refused to take fruquintinib due to difficulty urinating and lower abdominal pain after the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection. The patient died in February 2023. Patient 2 also took two prior lines of chemotherapy and then local radiotherapy combined with S-1. After confirmed disease progression, the patient experienced a continuous partial response after using fruquintinib monotherapy in the third line. After the patient had COVID-19 in December 2022, fruquintinib was discontinued. The patient died in January 2023 due to disease progression. CONCLUSION Both cases achieved a PFS benefit from later-line single-agent fruquintinib therapy. With its better safety profile, fruquintinib may be worth exploring and studying in more depth as a later-line treatment for pancreatic cancer patients.