Primary Care Versus Oncology-Based Surveillance Following Adjuvant Chemotherapy in Resected Pancreatic Cancer

Pancreatic cancer has poor 5-year survival rate generally below 20%. Most patients with pancreatic cancer will develop incurable recurrences. There is little evidence on whether a surveillance strategy following initial surgery or curative treatment improves cancer outcomes. This study has characterized the patterns of surveillance and evaluated the effect of each strategy on 147 patients and their outcomes. Specifically two surveillance strategies were compared primary care physician (PCP) surveillance versus follow-up at cancer centers. Cancer centre follow-up detected recurrencers earlier than follow-up by PCPs but there was no significant difference in overall survival between primary care-based surveillance and cancer center follow-up. Relapse-free survival was better in the primary care-based group. Overall, PCPs could play a larger role in the follow-up and surveillance of pancreatic cancer patients specifically low risk patients with resected pancreatic cancer.   Read the full article here.