Postoperative hepatic arterial infusion chemotherapy improved survival of pancreatic cancer after radical pancreatectomy: a retrospective study

OBJECTIVE: To determine the effect of postoperative hepatic arterial infusion chemotherapy (HAIC) on long-term survival of patients with pancreatic cancer (PC) after radical pancreatectomy. METHODS: A total of 87 patients with PC underwent radical pancreatectomy in the First People’s Hospital affiliated to Huzhou Normal College between June 2008 and May 2013. Among these patients, after surgery, 43 received two sessions of HAIC followed by four sessions of systemic chemotherapy (HAIC group), while 44 received six sessions of systemic chemotherapy alone (control group). Both the HAIC and systemic chemotherapy regimen included 5-fluorouracil (1,000 mg/m(2)) as a 5-h infusion on day 1, and gemcitabine (800 mg/m(2)) as an over 30-min infusion on days 1 and 8. The toxicity, complication, and long-term survival were retrospectively compared. RESULTS: No significant difference in patient characteristics between the two groups was found. No chemotherapy-related deaths were recorded, and no significant difference in toxicities was observed between the two groups. The 5-year disease-free survival probability did not differ between the two groups (P=0.2029, hazard ratio for recurrence=0.7561; 95% CI=0.4768–1.1989, by the log-rank test). The HAIC group had significantly higher 5-year overall survival probability (P=0.0288, hazard ratio for death=0.6059; 95% CI=0.3734–0.9832, by the log-rank test) and higher 5-year hepatic metastases-free survival probability (P=0.0321, hazard ratio for hepatic metastases=0.5006; 95% CI=0.2546–0.9843, by the log-rank test) than the control group. CONCLUSIONS: Postoperative HAIC has the potential to prevent hepatic metastases and increase long-term survival probability of patients with PC after radical pancreatectomy.