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Surgical resection is the only curative option for pancreatic cancer. Adjuvant gemcitabine, with or without radiation, improves survival after surgery, as seen in the RTOG 9704 trial (JW Oncol Hematol Mar 4 2008) and the CONKO-001 trial (JW Oncol Hematol Jan 16 2007). However, most patients do not achieve this benefit. Findings from retrospective research have implicated postoperative cancer-antigen (CA) 19-9 level as a prognostic marker for survival in patients with pancreatic cancer (Ann Surg Oncol 1997; 4:551).
To assess the prognostic value of CA 19-9 further, researchers conducted a prospective, phase III trial involving patients with resected pancreatic adenocarcinoma from the RTOG trial. In this secondary analysis, 385 patients (87% w…