Survival Benefits and Disparities in Adjuvant Radiation Therapy for Patients with Pancreatic Cancer.

Background: The effects of adjuvant radiation therapy on pancreatic cancer outcomes after resection are not well defined in the literature.

Methods: We abstracted data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Result (SEER) database to explore the impact of adjuvant radiation on cancer-specific survival in pancreatic cancer patients who received surgical resection.

Results: A total of 10,224 patients met our inclusion criteria with 6768 (66.2%) patients treated with surgery only and 3456 (33.8%) treated with surgery plus adjuvant radiation. Surgery followed by adjuvant radiation was associated with significantly improved survival (HR: 0.753, CI: 0.718-0.789, p<0.001). Additionally, female gender and married status were both independently associated with better survival (p<0.05), while advanced age, Caucasian race, higher TNM stage, and higher grade had worse survival outcomes (p<0.05) Asian and Spanish-Hispanic-Latino patients were less likely to receive adjuvant radiotherapy (p<0.05).

Conclusion: Adjuvant radiation was associated with significantly improved survival after resection for pancreatic cancer. There are significant differences in the patient populations who receive adjuvant radiation.