Survival outcomes in patients with early-stage, resectable pancreatic cancer: A comparison of gemcitabine and 5-fluorouracil based chemotherapy and chemoradiation regimens.
e14608 Background: Beyond curative surgery, the optimal treatment for early stage pancreatic cancer is still a matter of debate. We conducted a comparative survival analysis between patients with resectable pancreatic cancer who received adjuvant treatment with either gemcitabine or 5-fluorouracil based chemotherapy and chemoradiation regimens. Methods: The Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER)-Medicare database was used to identify patients with pancreatic cancer diagnosed from 1998 to 2005 who received curative surgery and adjuvant chemotherapy with either 5-fluorouracil or gemcitabine. These groups were subdivided by treatment with radiotherapy. Patients were followed until death, study endpoint or a maximum of five years after diagnosis. Results: 359 patients received 5-fluorouracil and 346 received gemcitabine. Compared to chemoradiation with 5-fluorouracil, outcomes for patients who received chemoradiation with gemcitabine did not differ. Patients who received gemcitabine without radiation had increased hazards (hazard ratio (HR) = 1.50 for high grade tumors (HGT), HR = 1.32 for low grade tumors (LGT)). However, outcomes of patients who received 5-fluorouracil without radiation varied with tumor grade. In LGT, patients had better outcomes with 5-fluorouracil when compared with chemoradiation with 5-fluorouracil (HR = 0.43). In HGT, the opposite was true (HR 2.10). Conclusions: Patients with low grade resectable pancreatic cancer may have better outcomes with 5-fluorouracil based chemotherapy without radiation when compared to 5-fluorouracil with radiation.