| Abstract: | The remedy, especially chemotherapy, for advanced pancreatic cancer is hardly ever successful in terms of efficacy rate and survival period, because it is virtually unable to contribute to the improvement of median survival time (MST). Thus,we devised a new intermittent dosage regimen utilizing the cell cycle difference of normal GI tract, bone marrow cell and pancreatic cancer cell, making use of 5-FU (-->S-1), CDDP and paclitaxel in March 2002. Ten patients with advanced pancreatic cancer (4 in Stage IVa and 6 in Stage IVb) were treated with this new regimen. As a result, an efficacy ratio of 50.0% and a 1-year survival ratio of 60.0% were achieved. However, 2-year survival ratio of 12.0% was low, and there was no 3-year survivor. The MST was 19 months as of December 31, 2006. All of the non-hematological toxicities were under grade 2. Eight patients had hematological toxicities over grade 3 and most of them were anemia and neutropenia. Only 2 cases had thrombocytopenia. Although adverse effects related to this regimen were clinically manageable, it was difficult to improve MST of patients with advanced pancreatic cancer with chemotherapy alone including this regimen. Hence, we devised another regimen with the joint use of radiotherapy along with the same chemotherapy regimen in January 2003. Twenty patients with advanced pancreatic cancer (Stage IV) were treated with this regimen. It is presently under way, and an efficacy ratio of 35.0%, 1-year survival ratio of 86.3% and 2-year survival ratio of 64.0% were obtained by May 2005, showing that this may contribute to the extension of survival time of Stage IV pancreatic cancer patients. |
