Chemotherapy for advanced pancreatic cancer in older patients (literature review)

Elderly patients with malignant neoplasms of the pancreas are poorly represented in large clinical trials. Thus, in the MPACT and ACCORD study, the median age of patients with malignant neoplasms of the pancreas was 61 years, and it remains unclear whether the results obtained can be extrapolated to older patients, whom we most often encounter in real clinical practice. The vast majority of studies that analyzed the efficacy and tolerability of systemic chemotherapy in elderly and senile patients showed good tolerability of gemcitabine monotherapy, the tolerability of combined chemotherapy regimens among older patients with pancreatic adenocarcinoma varied between studies, but was expectedly higher than with monotherapy. with regard to survival rates, the effectiveness of systemic chemotherapy has also been shown here, especially combined regimens among elderly patients. But almost all studies were retrospective or included a small number of patients, which does not allow assessing the reliability of the results. The question of the advisability of intensifying chemotherapy in elderly and senile patients remains open.