Background: This study aimed to explore the impact of serum tumor markers on survival for patients with pancreatic cancer (PC) who received initial systemic therapy (IST) followed by surgery.
Methods: Between April 2010 and July 2018, 285 consecutive patients who underwent curative intent surgery for PC were enrolled in the study. The relation between carbohydrate antigen 19-9 and duke pancreatic monoclonal antigen type 2 (DUPAN-2) after IST was analyzed as well as PC prognosis.
Results: The study identified 95 patients who underwent systemic chemotherapy with or without radiotherapy as IST from the our prospectively maintained database at the Department of Gastroenterological Surgery (Surgery II), Nagoya University Graduate School of Medicine, Nagoya, Japan. Survival analysis of the 95 patients showed significant differences in recurrence-free survival (RFS) and overall survival (OS) between the DUPAN-2-normalized (D-normalized) and DUPAN-2-unnormalized (D-unnormalized) groups (median RFS, 24.1 vs. 14.2 months, p = 0.003; median OS, not reached vs. 29.6 months, p = 0.003). In addition, a tendency of differences in survival was observed between the D-normalized and D-unnormalized groups with borderline resectable PC (RFS, 20.1 vs. 14.2 months, p = 0.052; OS, not reached vs. 29.6 months, p = 0.081), and significant differences in survival were observed between the D-normalized and D-unnormalized groups with unresectable PC (RFS, 25.1 vs. 12.1 months, p < 0.001; OS, not reached vs. 11.4 months, p < 0.001). Furthermore, multivariate analysis demonstrated that normalized DUPAN-2 independently predicted survival of resected PC [RFS: hazard ratio (HR) 2.180; 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.16-4.08, p = 0.015; OS: HR 2.806; 95% CI 1.19-6.62, p = 0.018].
Conclusions: During IST, DUPAN-2 normalization may potentially predict prolonged survival for PC patients and optimal timing for conversion surgery in IST.