Adjuvant concurrent chemoradiotherapy improves outcomes in curatively resected biliary tract cancers

Patients with curatively resected biliary tract cancers who received adjuvant concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CCRT) had better recurrence-free survival than those receiving chemotherapy, according to a study published in BMC Gastroenterology.

In this study, patients with curatively resected biliary tract cancers who received adjuvant CCRT (n = 46) or adjuvant chemotherapy (n =46) were included.

Patients receiving adjuvant CCRT had median recurrence-free survival (RFS) of 13.8 months compared to 11.2 months in the chemotherapy group. The median overall survival for the adjuvant CCRT and chemotherapy groups were 30.1 months and 26.0 months

Adjuvant CCRT led to significantly longer RFS and numerically higher OS in patients with no lymph node involvement or negative resection margins than did chemotherapy.

Reference

Kim H, Heo MH, Kim JY. Comparison of the effects of adjuvant concurrent chemoradiotherapy and chemotherapy for resected biliary tract cancer [published correction appears in BMC Gastroenterol. 2020 Jul 2;20(1):207]. BMC Gastroenterol. 2020;20(1):20. Published 2020 Jan 28. doi:10.1186/s12876-020-1171-1