Treatment of advanced pancreatic cancer: from gemcitabine single agent to combinations and targeted therapy

Abstract

The prognosis of advanced pancreatic adenocarcinoma is still poor nowadays. Gemcitabine in monotherapy (30-min infusion) has been the standard of treatment during the last decade, and many clinical trials have failed to demonstrate an improvement in overall survival (OS) with the addition of different drugs to gemcitabine, including cetuximab and bevacizumab. Nevertheless, some modest but interesting advances have been provided by combinations such as gemcitabine-erlotinib, gemcitabine-capecitabine and gemcitabine plus a platinum salt. In spite of this, survival results remain disappointing. Further research focused on new combinations, incorporating the new targeted therapies and identifying potential predictive factors of response are required to be able to offer effective tailored therapies to these patients.