Abstract
Among 45 patients with carcinoma of the pancreas admitted to Fukui Medical School Hospital since October 1, 1983, twenty eight were concluded to be unresectable before or during surgery because of locally advanced cancer of the pancreas (Stage IV).
Multidisciplinary therapy, including intraoperative electron beam irradiation and chemotherapy with or without extrenal beam irradiation and radiofrequency hyperthermia, was adopted for recent 10 patients of these 28 with unresectable cancer of the pancreas. Depending on these combination therapies, remarkable effect on relief of pain was obtained in 80% of the patients and that on reduction of the tumor was also obtained in 3 patients. A prolonged median survival for the multidisciplinary therapy (250.0 days) compared with the non-multidisciplinary therapy (85.4 days) was demonstrated and one patient receiving in the multidisciplinary therapy was alive more than 1 year. Severe complications due to radiotherapy, such as hematologic and gastrointestinal toxicities, were not noted.
For unresectable cancer of the pancreas, multidisciplinary therapy might be effective for getting a long term survival and a good quality of life.
