Optimizing Treatment in Patients With Resectable Pancreatic Cancer

Vincent Picozzi, MD, director of the Pancreas Center of Excellence, Digestive Disease Institute, Virginia Mason Medical Center, discusses treatment for patients with pancreatic cancer who undergo surgery. Overall, the landscape lacks data on how to optimally sequence chemotherapy in patients with resectable disease.

In general, Picozzi says these patients are treated according to a specific predesignated treatment protocol. The most common treatment for these patients is to first receive chemotherapy, then chemoradiation followed by surgery.

Picozzi notes that there is little to no chemotherapy administered after surgery. Some studies call the role of chemoradiation preoperatively into question. The whole way that different therapies are integrated and sequenced is now being reexamined at this time.

At the 2020 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium, Picozzi presented an analysis aimed to address this challenge in pancreatic cancer. The goal of the study is to identify patterns of recurrence to find patients who require subsequent therapy following surgery.

<< View more information on this analysis in pancreatic cancer