Combined CA19-9 and DUPAN-2 levels after induction chemotherapy flag poor survival in pancreatic cancer

Pancreatic cancer patients with both CA19-9 and DUPAN-2 still high after induction chemotherapy had almost no 5-year survival after surgery.

• Among 39 patients who had curative-intent surgery for initially unresectable locally advanced pancreatic cancer, 10.3% had both markers high after chemotherapy.
• Their 5-year overall survival was 0%, versus 44.3% in the normal/normal group.
• This group was an independent predictor of poor survival on multivariate analysis.

Use the post-chemotherapy marker pattern to stratify patients before committing them to surgery, but only in this small single-center series; it does not yet decide who should be operated on.