Current perspectives on locally advanced pancreatic cancer

This year, approximately 40% of the 28,300 patients diagnosed with pancreat ic carcinoma in the United States will present with focally advanced diseas e. Radiotherapeutic approaches are often employed, as these patients have u nresectable tumors by virtue of local invasion into the retroperitoneal ves sels in the absence of clinically detectable metastases, These treatments i nclude external-beam irradiation with and without fluorouracil (5-FU)-based chemotherapy, intraoperative irradiation, and more recently, external-beam irradiation with new systemic agents, such as gencitabine (Gemzar).