Study of Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy for Patients After Radical Resection of Pancreatic Cancer With Advanced Stages (T3 or N1)

Pancreatic cancer is one of the deadliest tumor types of the alimentary system. Despite of the dramatic progress of diagnostic methods and surgical technics, the overall 5-year survival is still around 5%. Resection is the only curable method to treat pancreatic cancer, although only a small proportion of patients are eligible for operation. However, even if radical resection is achieved, the 5-year survival rate is only 15-20%. The main cause of death is tumor recurrence, which is as high as 50-70% in 3 years after operation. By now, it is widely accepted that pancreatic cancer is a systemic disease. Systemic treatments are recommended in neoadjuvant and adjuvant manners. It's reported adjuvant radiation can prolong survival and improve quality of life after surgery, especially for patients who undergo a R1 (microscopic positive margin) and R2 (macroscopic positive margin) resection. For R0 (microscopic negative margin) resection patients with advanced stages (T3 or N1), the value of adjuvant radiation is still in debate. Some argues adjuvant radiation after radical resection makes no effect on preventing local recurrence and metastasis but may impair patients' quality of life and overall survival. On the contrary, some other researchers draw the conclusion that adjuvant radiation may facilitate the local control of tumor recurrence in small cohorts. It's warranted to explore the role of adjuvant radiation for patients after radical resection of pancreatic cancer with advanced stages (T3 or N1) in large, prospective, and randomized cohorts. Traditionally, radiation may take more than one month to deliver and the dosage is restricted to prevent damage to surrounding tissues. The size effects and duration impair patients' compliance. Recently, the application of Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy (SBRT) makes radiation less harmful and more flexible. The advantages of SBRT are higher dosage of radiation, less damage to surrounding organs, and significant reduce of duration. To our knowledge, there is no big randomized clinical trial to evaluate the value of SBRT for patients after radical resection of pancreatic cancer with advanced stages (T3 or N1). It is hoped that adjuvant SBRT may benefit post-operative patients with advanced stages and one day adjuvant SBRT combined with chemotherapy become the standard of care for pancreatic cancer patients.