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IA and IV Gemcitabine plus Mitomycin-C for Pancreatic Cancer

Recent advances over the drug agent gemcitabine for advanced pancreatic cancer (ductal adenocarcinoma of the pancreas) are still in progress but the current strong regimins for first-line therapy appear to include the FOLFIRINOX (5-FU based) combination regimen, and now recently Abraxane plus gemcitabine.

Now comes a study by German researchers Lorenz and colleagues from the University of Frankfurt as published in the August issue of the journal Hepatogastroenterology which looks at a regimen that uses intravenous and intra-arterial gemcitabine plus the oncology agent Mitomycin C in the treatment of advanced pancreatic cancer.

This was a Phase II study with 17 patients with diagnosed advanced cancer of the pancreas. The median progression-free duration was 4.6 months; and the median overall survival duration was 9.1 months for the patients. The most frequent side-effects were hematologic. The authors suggest that this regimen may give improved survival results over gemcitabine given alone, and perhaps comparable results as that of the FOLFIRINOX regimen, but with fewer side-effects.

This is research that requires further study and follow-up !

More here

 

Dale O’Brien, MD