Potentially Curable Pancreatic Cancer: American Society of Clinical Oncology Clinical Practice Guideline Update

Purpose To update the Potentially Curable Pancreatic Cancer: American Society of Clinical Oncology Clinical Practice Guideline published on May 31, 2016. The October 2016 update focuses solely on new evidence that pertains to clinical question 4 of the guideline: What is the appropriate adjuvant regimen for patients with pancreatic cancer who have undergone an R0 or R1 resection of their primary tumor? Methods The recently published results of a randomized phase III study prompted an update of this guideline. The high quality of the reported evidence and the potential for its clinical impact prompted the Expert Panel to revise one of the guideline recommendations. Results The ESPAC-4 study, a multicenter, international, open-label randomized controlled phase III trial of adjuvant combination chemotherapy compared gemcitabine and capecitabine with gemcitabine monotherapy in 730 evaluable patients with resected pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma. Median overall survival was improved in the doublet arm to 28.0 months (95% CI, 23.5 to 31.5 months) versus 25.5 months (95% CI, 22.7 to 27.9 months) for gemcitabine alone (hazard ratio, 0.82; 95% CI, 0.68 to 0.98; P = .032). Grade 3 and 4 adverse events were similar in both arms, although higher rates of hand-foot syndrome and diarrhea occurred in patients randomly assigned to the doublet arm. Recommendations All patients with resected pancreatic cancer who did not receive preoperative therapy should be offered 6 months of adjuvant chemotherapy in the absence of medical or surgical contraindications. The doublet regimen of gemcitabine and capecitabine is preferred in the absence of concerns for toxicity or tolerance; alternatively, monotherapy with gemcitabine or fluorouracil plus folinic acid can be offered. Adjuvant treatment should be initiated within 8 weeks of surgical resection, assuming complete recovery. The remaining recommendations from the original 2016 ASCO guideline are unchanged.