Survival Benefits of Chemotherapy for Patients with Advanced Pancreatic Cancer in A Clinical Real-World Cohort

Clinical outcomes of chemotherapy for patients with advanced pancreatic adenocarcinoma in a real-world setting might differ from outcomes in randomized clinical trials (RCTs). Here we show in a single-institution cohort of 595 patients that median overall survival (OS) of patients who received gemcitabine alone (n = 185; 6.6 months (95% CI; 5.5–7.7)) was the same as in pivotal RCTs. Gemcitabine/capecitabine (n = 60; 10.6 months (95% CI; 7.8–13.3)) and gemcitabine/nab-paclitaxel (n = 66; 9.8 months (95% CI; 7.9–11.8)) resulted in a longer median OS and fluorouracil/oxaliplatin/irinotecan (n = 31, 9.9 months (95% CI; 8.1–11.7)) resulted in a shorter median OS than previously reported. Fluorouracil/oxaliplatin (n = 35, 5.8 months (95% CI; 4.5–7)) and best supportive care (n = 206, 1.8 months (95% CI; 1.5–2.1)) could not be benchmarked against any RCTs. The degree of protocol adherence explained differences between real-world outcomes and the respective RCTs, while exposure to second-line treatments did not.