Adjuvant chemotherapy is often used after the initial cancer treatment, especially to suppress secondary tumor formation. It is already a standard practice after surgery for this type of cancer, but the role of radiation therapy and which patients would benefit from it is still uncertain.

In this study, researchers from Zhongshan Hospital Fudan University, in Shanghai, China, looked at a group of patients who had undergone pancreatic surgery between April 2012 and December 2019. They excluded patients with certain conditions, such as carcinoma in situ, distant metastasis, and those who did not receive supplemental chemotherapy. They analyzed the data using different statistical methods to identify any potential factors that could affect survival.

They found that out of the 399 patients included in the study, 93 of them had received adjuvant chemoradiotherapy and 306 had received chemotherapy alone. The patients who received both chemotherapy and radiation therapy were more likely to be male and have more advanced disease. The presence of lymph node metastases was identified as a negative factor affecting overall survival.

Interestingly, they did not find a significant overall survival benefit associated with the addition of radiation therapy. However, when they looked specifically at patients who were alive for more than one year after surgery and who had either T4, N2 disease or R1 resection, they noticed a trend towards improved survival with radiation therapy.

So, although this treatment may not be effective for all patients, there may be a benefit for a specific subgroup of patients who have certain characteristics, such as T4N2 disease or R1 resection, and who are still alive one year after surgery.