Clinically meaningful responses to sequential gemcitabine-based chemotherapy regimens in a patient with metastatic pancreatic cancer.

Pancreatic cancer exhibits profound chemoresistance resulting either from pre-existing (intrinsic) mechanisms, or from anticancer drug treatment itself (acquired chemoresistance). We present the case of a patient with pancreatic adenocarcinoma metastatic to the liver who experienced clinical, radiographic and tumor marker response to three lines of gemcitabine-based chemotherapy. The regimens included: 8 cycles of gemcitabine and oxaliplatin (GEMOX), 8 cycles of gemcitabine, docetaxel and capecitabine (GTX) and more than 3 cycles of gemcitabine and nab-paclitaxel, with an exceptional response 2 years from the initiation of chemotherapy for metastatic pancreatic cancer.

Synchronous presentation of a primary iliac lymph node plasmacytoma and a prostate adenocarcinoma.

Synchronous presentation of primary nodal plasmacytoma and prostate cancer is very rare and has not been described in the literature. Here, we report a case of a patient with nodal plasmacytoma whose clinical presentation was suggestive of metastatic prostate cancer in the setting of recently diagnosed prostate cancer. The workup and treatment of both malignancies as well as a possible underlying common pathologic mechanism (IL-6 gene mutation) are discussed.