Dr. Simeone on Benefit of Neoadjuvant Gemcitabine in Pancreatic Cancer

Diane M. Simeone, MD, Laura and Issac Perlmutter Professor of Surgery in the Department of Surgery; professor in the Department of Pathology; associate director of Translational Research at Perlmutter Cancer Center; professor in the Department of Pathology at NYU Grossman School of Medicine; and director of the Pancreatic Cancer Center of NYU Langone Health, discusses the benefit of using a gemcitabine “sandwich approach” in patients with resectable pancreatic cancer.

A couple studies were read out at the 2020 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium that are relevant to this space, says Simeone. For example, a phase 2 study that came from Europe enrolled patients with resectable or borderline resectable disease and randomized those patients to receive either surgery and adjuvant gemcitabine or neoadjuvant gemcitabine, surgery, and then gemcitabine afterward, almost like a sandwich approach, says Simeone.

The preliminary data suggest that patients who were treated with neoadjuvant gemcitabine and then surgery followed by more gemcitabine seemed to have improved overall survival, concludes Simeone.