A phase III trial of pemetrexed plus gemcitabine versus gemcitabine in patients with unresectable or metastatic pancreatic cancer

BACKGROUND

This randomized phase III study compared the overall survival (OS) of pemetrexed plus gemcitabine (PG) versus standard gemcitabine (G) in patients with advanced pancreatic cancer.

PATIENTS AND METHODS

Patients with unresectable locally advanced or metastatic pancreatic cancer and no prior systemic therapy (including 5-fluorouracil as a radiosensitizer) were randomized to receive either 1,250 mg/m(2) gemcitabine on days 1 and 8 plus pemetrexed 500 mg/m(2) after gemcitabine on day 8 (PG arm) of each 21-day cycle, or gemcitabine 1,000 mg/m(2) on days 1, 8 and 15 of each 28-day cycle (G arm).

RESULTS

Five hundred and sixty-five patients with well-balanced baseline characteristics were randomly assigned (283 PG, 282 G). OS was not improved on the PG arm (6.2 months) compared with the G arm (6.3 months) (P=0.8477). Progression-free survival (3.9 versus 3.3 months; P=0.1109) and time to treatment failure (3 versus 2.2 months; P=0.2680) results were similar. Tumor response rate (14.8% versus 7.1%; P=0.004) was significantly better on the PG arm. Grade 3 or 4 neutropenia (45.1% versus 12.8%), thrombocytopenia (17.9% versus 6.2%), anemia (13.9% versus 2.9%), febrile neutropenia (9.9% versus 0.4%; all P <0.001) and fatigue (15% versus 6.6%; P=0.002) were significantly more common on the PG arm. Four treatment-related deaths occurred on the PG arm and none in the G arm.

CONCLUSIONS

Pemetrexed plus gemcitabine therapy did not improve OS. Single-agent gemcitabine remains the standard of care for advanced pancreatic cancer.