ASO Author Reflections: Does Adjuvant Therapy Confer a Survival Benefit in Patients Receiving Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy for Pancreatic Cancer? A CA19-9 Analysis

Excerpt

Pancreatic resection followed by adjuvant therapy (AT) is the current standard of care for pancreatic adenocarcinoma (PDAC). However, a significant proportion of patients are unable to receive or complete AT due to postoperative morbidity.1 This, coupled to the realization that PDAC is a systemic disease at diagnosis, has led to increasing interest in a neoadjuvant therapy (NAT) approach. NAT can downstage tumors, increase R0 resection rates, treat micrometastatic disease, and allow a greater proportion of patients to complete multimodality treatment.2 Despite the enthusiasm for NAT, consensus on the optimal perioperative chemotherapy strategy in localized PDAC remains under debate. Specifically, it is unclear whether patients who receive NAT will benefit from additional AT. …