Compiled by HUPPO Ark team | Pancreatic cancer is known as the "king of cancer" because of its insidious onset and high malignancy. According to the Lancet, the overall 5-year survival rate of pancreatic cancer in China is only 7.2%. The United States has rich clinical experience in the treatment of pancreatic cancer, with a 5-year survival rate of up to 42% and an overall rate of 11%, which is 1.5 times higher than that in China. So, how is pancreatic cancer treated in the United States? How should treatment be done to further improve the survival rate of pancreatic cancer?
01. Minimally invasive surgery and neoadjuvant treatment
Surgery is the main treatment for pancreatic cancer and the basis of comprehensive treatment for pancreatic cancer. Specific surgical procedures include pancreaticoduodenectomy (Whipple procedure), caudal pancreatic body resection and total pancreatectomy. Because of the deep location of the pancreas and the rich blood flow around it, pancreatic cancer surgery is more difficult compared to other surgeries and requires the attending surgeon to have rich clinical experience.
In recent years, with the development of laparoscopy and robotic surgery, minimally invasive surgery has developed rapidly in pancreatic surgery, which can help patients with pancreatic cancer to improve their subsequent quality of life while prolonging their survival. A large number of clinical studies have now shown that minimally invasive surgery for pancreatic cancer results in less intraoperative blood loss, shorter hospital stay, faster functional recovery, and better quality of life compared to open surgery. A study published in the Journal of Gastrointestinal Surgery in June
2022 compared minimally invasive pancreaticoduodenectomy with open pancreaticoduodenectomy for pancreatic cancer. The study included 18,936 pancreatic cancer patients with a median age of 67 years, and it considered a combination of short-term, long-term and oncologic outcomes, ultimately stating that minimally invasive pancreaticoduodenectomy for pancreatic cancer was superior to open surgery Survival Rates for Pancreatic Cancer
_https://www. cancer.org/cancer/pancreatic-cancer/detection-diagnosis-staging/survival-rates.html
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[7] FDA Approves Tarceva(R) in Combination with Gemcitabine Chemotherapy for Treatment of Locally Advanced, Inoperable or Metastatic Pancreatic Cancer; Tarceva Now Approved for Advanced Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer and Pancreatic Cancer
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[9] Lynparza granted orphan drug designation in Japan for BRCA-mutated metastatic pancreatic cancer
[10] FDA approves larotrectinib for solid tumors with NTRK gene fusions
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