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Adjuvant Chemoradiation Therapy for Pancreatic Cancer

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Pancreatic Cancer

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Abstract

Despite newer treatment modalities, overall outcome for pancreatic cancer remains poor and has changed very little during the past 30 years. Surgery remains the mainstay, but delivery of adjuvant postoperative therapy has been shown to be essential for long-term survival. Large, prospective randomized studies have revealed conflicting data on whether chemotherapy alone or combination chemoradiation is optimal. They have also triggered debates regarding the sequencing of adjuvant therapy strategies. Unfortunately, marked discrepancies exist with patient selection as well as trial design among these studies, resulting in inadequate comparisons of their conclusions. Nevertheless, like other gastrointestinal malignancies, it appears that adjuvant combination chemoradiation is superior to chemotherapy alone when the data is critically analyzed. This critical examination of the published data to date is provided in the forthcoming chapter, along with an assessment of what is needed for future trials to determine the optimal adjuvant treatment modality and improve overall outcome for pancreatic cancer patients.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Radiation Oncology, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Adeel Kaiser, William F. Regine, Naimish Pandya & Michael C. Garofalo

Authors
  1. Adeel Kaiser
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  2. William F. Regine
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  3. Naimish Pandya
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  4. Michael C. Garofalo
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Adeel Kaiser .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. DMCCMC, University of Liverpool DMCCMC, Liverpool, United Kingdom

    John P. Neoptolemos

  2. Rochester, Minnesota, USA

    Raul Urrutia

  3. Dept. Gastrointestinal Medical Onco, Duke University Medical Center Dept. Gastrointestinal Medical Onco, Durham, North Carolina, USA

    James Abbruzzese

  4. Heidelberg, Germany

    Markus W. Büchler

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Kaiser, A., Regine, W.F., Pandya, N., Garofalo, M.C. (2017). Adjuvant Chemoradiation Therapy for Pancreatic Cancer. In: Neoptolemos, J., Urrutia, R., Abbruzzese, J., Büchler, M. (eds) Pancreatic Cancer. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-6631-8_44-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-6631-8_44-2

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  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4939-6631-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4939-6631-8

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