Gemcitabine treatment in patients with inoperable locally advanced/metastatic pancreatic cancer and prognostic factors
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Abstract
Objective. Most patients with pancreatic cancer show an inoperable locally advanced/ metastatic tumour at the time of diagnosis. The present study was aimed at determining the prognostic factors in patients with advanced pancreatic carcinoma treated with gemcitabine. Material and methods. Sixty- seven unresectable or metastatic pancreatic cancer patients treated with gemcitabine were included in the study and a total of 258 cycles of treatment were applied. Results. The overall response rate was 5%. Thirty- one percent of the patients had stable disease, whereas progressive disease was seen in 49%. Clinical benefit response rate was 15%. The median duration of response was 7.3 months. Median progression- free survival was 3 months, while median overall survival was 9 months. Univariate analysis revealed that worse results were found in patients with performance status ( PS) = 2, and in patients with primary tumour location in the body or tail of the pancreas ( p < 0.05). Multivariate analysis of data revealed that the most important factor was PS of the patient, as the patients with PS = 2 had worse results than the patients with PS = 0 - 1 ( p < 0.05). Conclusions. Low PS is a negative predictive factor for the survival of patients with advanced pancreatic carcinoma treated with gemcitabine.