Metastatic Pancreatic Cancer: Current Treatment Options for Swiss Patients

Abstract

Despite oncological advances over the past years, survival outcomes for patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) remain poor. For most PDAC patients, the disease is often asymptomatic at early phases and is therefore typically diagnosed at the advanced or metastatic stage. As a result, up to 85% of the cases are unresectable, and systemic chemotherapy is the predominant treatment modality for this patient population. While the current therapeutic strategies for the local disease include surgical resection and adjuvant chemotherapy, FOLFIRINOX and gemcitabine plus nab-paclitaxel regimens are the frontline standard of care in the unresectable locally advanced and metastatic settings. In Switzerland, nanoliposomal irinotecan (nal-IRI) is currently the only regimen approved in the second line following progression on gemcitabine plus nab-paclitaxel, based on the results from the phase III NAPOLI-1 trial. Recently, olaparib, a poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitor, and larotrectinib, a first-in-class tropomyosin receptor kinases (TRK) inhibitor, were added to the treatment armamentarium of patients with a molecularly-defined subset of metastatic adenocarcinoma of the pancreas. This article provides an overview of the current treatment landscape of pancreatic cancer in Switzerland. In addition, we report a case of a long-term survivor with advanced pancreatic adenocarcinoma who achieved a notably good response to nal-IRI plus 5-FU/LV after progression on gemcitabine plus nab-paclitaxel.