With this new combination chemotherapy, the survival rate for the pancreatic cancer at 5 years increases to 28.8% compared to 16.3% with treatment with a single drug, according to the results of a study published in the medical journal The Lancet.
Researchers from the University of Liverpool and Manchester in the UK and the Karolinska Institute and Uppsala University (Sweden), and the University of Hamburg in Germany conducted a study of 732 patients with had surgery for their pancreatic cancer, and followed from 2008 to 2014. These patients were treated either with gemcitabine alone or with the gemcitabine + capecitabine combination, for 4 weeks of chemotherapy. Scientists analyzed patients every 3 months and for 5 years to determine their survival time from treatment.
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A higher survival rate but undesirable effects
The results of the study showed that patients treated with both drugs had a higher survival rate. In fact, they noted an average survival with gemcitabine of 25.5 months and an average life expectancy with gemcitabine + capecitabine of 28 months.
The study showed a death or recurrence rate of 78% with gemcitabine and 74% with gemcitabine + capecitabine and a 5-year survival rate of 28.8% with gemcitabine + capecitabine versus 16% with gemcitabine alone.
But during the course of treatment, patients on combination therapy experienced side effects.
Indeed, during the study, 35% of patients stopped chemotherapy before the end, including 41% because of the side effects of the treatment. 481 serious adverse events were noted in the gemcitabine alone group and 608 in the combined “chemo” group.
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