Pancreatic cancer: are we moving forward yet? Highlights from the Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium. Orlando, FL, USA. January 20th, 2007.

Survival for patients with pancreatic cancer remains abysmal. Standard treatment for resected and locally advanced disease usually consists of 5-fluorouracil (5-FU, either bolus or continuous infusion) and external beam radiation. However, recent studies have shown the role of gemcitabine either used alone or incorporated with 5-FU and external beam radiation in this setting. Gemcitabine and erlotinib (Tarceva) are currently the only standard chemotherapeutic agents approved by FDA for the treatment of advanced pancreatic cancer. Combination chemotherapy trials incorporating gemcitabine with other agents such as 5-FU, oxaliplatin, or capecitabine generally show improved outcomes in objective response rates but with little or no improvement in survival in phase III trials. In this article, the author summarizes the key studies in pancreatic cancer presented at the 2007 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium (Orlando, FL, USA; January, 2007). The studies discussed here include preliminary results of the Cancer and Leukemia Group B (CALGB) phase III trial of gemcitabine plus bevacizumab and activity of other targeted agents including sorafenib, cetuximab, retrospective and population-based studies evaluating the role of chemo-radiotherapy and radiotherapy, an analysis of 3,306 patients from the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) database evaluating the predictive role of lymph nodes in survival following pancreatectomy and the assessment of novel agents, such as Genexol-PM and S-1.