Comparison of efficacy and safety between neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy followed by surgery and immediate surgery in the treatment of resectable and borderline resectable pancreatic cancer: a Meta-analysis / 中华放射肿瘤学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:To systematically evaluate the efficacy and safety between neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy followed by surgery and immediate surgery in the treatment of resectable and borderline resectable pancreatic cancer.Methods:Literature review was performed from PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, Web of Science, CBM, Wanfang, CNKI and VIP from the inception date to February, 2020 using the key words including "pancreatic neoplasm, pancreatic cancer, surgery, preoperative chemoradiotherapy, neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy" in both English and Chinese. The randomized controlled clinical trials (RCTs) of neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy followed by surgery versus immediate surgery in the treatment of resectable and borderline resectable pancreatic cancer were searches. Literature screening, data extraction and estimation of the risk of bias were independently conducted by two researchers. The HR and 95% CI were used for estimating the overall survival time. The R 0 resection rate, overall incidence of postoperative complications, and mortality rate throughout treatment were assessed by the RR and 95% CI. The heterogeneity of the studies was analyzed using the I2 test. Results:A total of 4 RCTs were included. Among 400 patients, 197 cases were assigned into the neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy combined with surgery group and 203 in the immediate surgery group. The results of Meta-analysis showed that patients in the neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy followed by surgery group obtained longer overall survival ( HR=0.76, 95% CI 0.60-0.97, P=0.03) and higher R 0 resection rate ( RR=1.72, 95% CI 1.40-2.13, P<0.01). Besides, the overall incidence of postoperative complications ( RR=1.02, 95% CI 0.73-1.43, P=0.90) and mortality rate throughout treatment ( RR=1.19, 95% CI 0.48-2.93, P=0.71) did not significantly differ between two groups. Conclusions:During the treatment of resectable or borderline resectable pancreatic cancer, neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy followed by surgery may bring more survival benefits than immediate surgery and does not increase the incidence of postoperative complications and mortality rate throughout treatment. Therefore, neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy followed by surgery can be used as a recommended treatment for patients with resectable or borderline resectable pancreatic cancer.