ASCO 2016: Adding Capecitabine Chemotherapy to Gemcitabine Extends Survival After Pancreatic Cancer Surgery
For a more in-depth look at these data, as well as commentary, click here.
A European phase III trial, one of the largest ever conducted in pancreatic cancer, showed that adding the oral drug capecitabine chemotherapy to gemcitabine prolongs survival without increased toxicity. Adjuvant gemcitabine chemotherapy is currently the standard of care worldwide after surgical removal of pancreatic cancer.
The study, by Neoptelemos et al, was featured in a press briefing today and presented at the 2016 ASCO Annual Meeting (Abstract LBA4006).
“Unfortunately, most patients are not candidates for surgery when they are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer,” said lead study author John P. Neoptolemos, MA, MB, BChir, MD, FMedSci, Chair of Surgery in the Department Molecular and Clinical Cancer Medicine at the University of Liverpool in Liverpool, United Kingdom. “These findings are significant because they show that those patients who can undergo surgery have a fighting chance of surviving this cancer with the combination of two commonly used chemotherapies.”
To see Dr. Neoptolemos discuss this study with The ASCO Post, please click here.
The Study
With 732 patients, the European Study Group for Pancreatic Cancer (ESPAC) 4 trial is the second-largest clinical trial ever conducted in patients with pancreatic cancer who had undergone surgery. Within 12 weeks of surgery, patients with early-stage pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma were randomly assigned to receive either gemcitabine alone or gemcitabine with capecitabine for 24 weeks.
Key Findings
The median overall survival was 28.0 months with the combination regimen vs 25.5 months with gemcitabine alone. The estimated 5-year survival rates were 28.8% vs 16.3% in the two groups. “The difference in median survival may seem modest, but the improvement in long-term survival is substantial for this cancer,” said Dr. Neoptolemos. “We’ve gone from a 5-year survival rate of 8% with surgery alone to nearly 30% with adjuvant therapy.”
According to the authors, the patient characteristics were representative of a real-world pancreatic cancer population. A large proportion of patients had unfavorable prognostic factors, such as locally advanced or aggressive disease, large tumor size, or incomplete removal of the tumor.
The survival advantage with the combination regimen was similar irrespective of such factors. Patients who had been smokers but stopped smoking after their diagnosis had better outcomes than those who continued smoking.
Overall, there were no major differences in the types and severity of side effects between the two groups. Severe diarrhea was slightly more common with the combination regimen (14 vs 5 patients), as was fatigue (16 vs 14 patients). Quality of life was also comparable between the two groups.
Next Steps
The safety of this new gemcitabine/capecitabine chemotherapy regimen opens the opportunity to add other treatments to this combination, which might further improve outcomes for patients. Future research efforts will focus on developing tests to predict which patients would benefit most from a particular adjuvant therapy.
This study received funding from Cancer Research UK.
The content in this post has not been reviewed by the American Society of Clinical Oncology, Inc. (ASCO®) and does not necessarily reflect the ideas and opinions of ASCO®.
