Clinical trial NCT01045941: Safety Study of Adjuvant Gemcitabine Started One Week After Laparoscopic Distal Pancreatectomy for Adenocarcinoma
Official title: Phase II Study of Adjuvant Gemcitabine Started One Week After Laparoscopic
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: WITHDRAWN
Phase: PHASE2
Conditions: Pancreatic Neoplasms
Keywords: Distal Pancreas
Adenocarcinoma
Laparoscopic
Gemcitabine
Lead sponsor: Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins
Sponsor class: OTHER
First posted: 2010-01-11
Enrollment: 0
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 18
Maximum age (years): 90
Standard ages: ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: no
Allocation: NON_RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: SINGLE_GROUP
Primary purpose: TREATMENT

Brief summary: We believe that laparoscopic distal pancreatectomy for cancer allows quicker recovery and significantly reduces the chances of postoperative wound breakdown. This will shorten the wait time required to begin adjuvant therapy to one week after surgery thereby combating the micrometastasis unseen at the time of surgery. Prognosis for patients with pancreatic cancer will therefore improve along with decreasing the incidence of locoregional recurrence.

Detailed description: Gemcitabine-based chemo¬therapy remains the cornerstone for treatment of locally advanced or metastatic pancreatic cancer. Other novel chemotherapeutic combinations have been investigated in clinical trials, but the overall conclusions are that these agents have failed to improve outcomes. Our hypothesis is that nodal and hematologic micrometastasis make pancreas cancer a systemic problem at the time of surgery. Waiting the traditional six weeks to begin adjuvant therapy allows this very aggressive cancer to metastasize while the patient is waiting to begin therapy. This leads to the increased incidence of locoregional recurrence and poor prognosis. We believe that laparoscopic distal pancreatectomy for cancer allows quicker recovery and significantly reduces the chances of postoperative wound breakdown. This will shorten the wait time required to begin adjuvant therapy to one week after surgery thereby combating the micrometastasis unseen at the time of surgery. Prognosis for patients with pancreatic cancer will therefore improve along with decreasing the incidence of locoregional recurrence.

Methods: We will perform a prospective, non-randomized phase II study with patients undergoing laparoscopic distal pancreatectomy for pancreatic adenocarcinoma at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Gemcitabine will be given as a single-agent chemotherapy regimen one week following laparoscopic distal pancreatectomy according to the protocol designed by our medical oncologist. Six cycles of gemcitabine will be given. The patients will be followed in the medical oncology clinic weekly. Our Primary outcome variable will be all cause postoperative morbidity. Our sample size will be small (6-10 patients) as this is a Phase II study. Early termination rules include development of prohibitive toxicity or death. Our endpoints are an improvement in overall survival, quality of life, progression free survival, or disease free survival. Exclusion criteria will include patients with T4 or M1 disease, R2 resection margin, preoperative therapy, or if adjuvant therapy status was unknown.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* Male or female patients older than 18 with clinical diagnosis of distal pancreas adenocarcinoma

Exclusion Criteria:

* Patients with T4 or M1 disease, R2 resection margin, preoperative therapy, or if adjuvant therapy status was unknown.

Primary outcomes:
measure: To determine if it is safe to administer gemcitabine to patients with pancreatic cancer one week after laparoscopic distal pancreatectomy.
timeFrame: 1 year
Secondary outcomes:
measure: To determine the if the 1-year survival in patients with pancreatic cancer is improved with administration of gemcitabine one week following laparoscopic distal pancreatectomy
timeFrame: 1 year
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Baltimore
country: United States
facility: Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
state: Maryland
Study officials:
affiliation: Johns Hopkins University Department of Surgery
name: Martin A Makary, MD, MPH
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References:
citation: Crane CH, Abbruzzese JL, Evans DB, Wolff RA, Ballo MT, Delclos M, Milas L, Mason K, Charnsangavej C, Pisters PW, Lee JE, Lenzi R, Vauthey JN, Wong AB, Phan T, Nguyen Q, Janjan NA. Is the therapeutic index better with gemcitabine-based chemoradiation than with 5-fluorouracil-based chemoradiation in locally advanced pancreatic cancer? Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys. 2002 Apr 1;52(5):1293-302. doi: 10.1016/s0360-3016(01)02740-7.
citation: Kachnic LA, Shaw JE, Manning MA, Lauve AD, Neifeld JP. Gemcitabine following radiotherapy with concurrent 5-fluorouracil for nonmetastatic adenocarcinoma of the pancreas. Int J Cancer. 2001 Apr 20;96(2):132-9. doi: 10.1002/ijc.1008.
citation: Regine WF, Winter KA, Abrams RA, Safran H, Hoffman JP, Konski A, Benson AB, Macdonald JS, Kudrimoti MR, Fromm ML, Haddock MG, Schaefer P, Willett CG, Rich TA. Fluorouracil vs gemcitabine chemotherapy before and after fluorouracil-based chemoradiation following resection of pancreatic adenocarcinoma: a randomized controlled trial. JAMA. 2008 Mar 5;299(9):1019-26. doi: 10.1001/jama.299.9.1019.