Clinical efficacy evaluation of Erlotinib Combined with Concurrent Chemoradiotherapy in the treatment of locally advanced Pancreatic Cancer

Objective: To evaluate the clinical effects of erlotinib combined with concurrent chemoradiotherapy in the treatment of locally advanced pancreatic cancer.

Methods: Eighty patients with locally advanced pancreatic cancer who attended Shijiazhuang People’s Hospital or Anhui Cancer Hospital between January 2018 and January 2020 were randomly divided into two groups, with 40 cases in each group. Patients in the control group were treated with concurrent chemoradiotherapy, while those in the experimental group were treated with erlotinib tablets based on the treatment regimen of the control group. Anti-tumor efficacy evaluation was conducted for all patients in both groups, and the adverse drug reactions, improvement of performance status after treatment were compared and analyzed between the two groups.

Results: The overall response rate of the experimental group was 47.5%, which was significantly better than the 25% of the control group (p=0.03). The incidence of adverse drug reactions in the experimental group was 40%, while that in the control group was 30%. The incidence of adverse drug reactions in the experimental group was higher than that in the control group, but there was no statistical significance (p=0.34). Moreover, the improvement rate of performance status score in the experimental group was significantly higher than that in the control group (p=0.00).

Conclusion: Erlotinib combined with concurrent chemoradiotherapy has been preliminarily proved to be safe and effective in the treatment of locally advanced pancreatic cancer, which can improve the physical condition of patients to a certain extent without significantly increasing adverse reactions.