Pancreatic cancer (pancreatic cancer) is primarily a disease in the elderly, the average age of those affected is 72 years.
A study that was carried out with the leading participation of the Comprehensive Cancer Center (CCC) of MedUni and Vienna General Hospital now shows that the combination of two chemotherapies (Nab-Paclitaxel and Gemcitabine) works just as well for older patients as it does for younger ones with good tolerance.
In Austria around 1,600 people are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer every year. Metastatic pancreatic cancer is one of the deadliest cancers in the world. Since pancreatic cancer has no specific symptoms, it is usually only discovered when the tumor has advanced locally or metastases are already present. In the metastatic stage, the tumor can often no longer be treated by surgery or radiation therapy. The therapy options especially for the elderly have also been very limited so far.
There could be a paradigm shift here, according to a MedUni Vienna broadcast on Thursday. The study showed that the combination of Nab-Paclitaxel and Gemcitabine brings just as good treatment results in people over the age of 70 as in younger people. “Five and a half months of gained lifetime through this therapy option alone does not seem like much at first, but it is a milestone when you consider that the average prognosis with conventional therapy was only a few weeks”, explained Gerald Prager, member of the CCC management and First author of the study.
With these modern therapies, tumors that were previously inoperable can now be controlled to such an extent that they can be successfully removed with modern and advanced surgical techniques. “For our patients, the ability to surgically remove locally advanced tumors through the combination of modern chemotherapy and innovative surgical procedures means a significant increase in longevity,” emphasized Oliver Strobel, the new head of the University Clinic for General Surgery at MedUni and Vienna General Hospital. The current study was published in the “European Journal of Cancer”.