Treatment of metastatic pancreatic adenocarcinoma: a comprehensive review

Abstract

The current standard therapy for metastatic pancreatic adenocarcinoma is the single-agent gemcitabine, by the increasingly used fixed rate infusion of 10 mg/m2/min. There is strong reason to anticipate that additional benefits will accrue with gemcitabine-based combination chemotherapy. Gemcitabine and CPT-11 are synergistic with many drugs and non-cross-resistant with each other. Rigorous clinical investigations will be performed in an effort to identify optimal drug sequence and schedules for these novel combinations.