FOLFOX as second-line chemotherapy in patients with pretreated metastatic pancreatic cancer from the FIRGEM study

Background: FOLFOX second-line treatment seems to be a validated option for patients with pancreatic cancer (PC) progressing after gemcitabine chemotherapy. However, other therapeutics strategy has developed in first-line therapy, as the FIRGEM phase II study that evaluated gemcitabine alone versus FOLFIRI. 3 alternating with gemcitabine every two months. The present study assessed the efficacy and safety of FOLFOX after failure of the first-line therapy used in the FIRGEM study. Methods: In this prospective observational cohort study, we analysed all consecutive patients who received second-line chemotherapy with FOLFOX among 98 patients with metastatic PC included in the FIRGEM study. Progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) were estimated from the start of second-line chemotherapy using the Kaplan-Meier method. Results: Among 46 patients who received second-line chemotherapy, 27 patients (male, 55%; median age, 61 years; performance status (PS) 0-1, 44%) were treated with FOLFOX after progression to first-line gemcitabine alone (n = 20) or FOLFIRI. 3 alternating with gemcitabine (n = 7). Grade 3 toxicity was observed in 33% of patients (no grade 4 toxicity). At the end of follow-up, all patients had progressed and 25 had died. No objective response was observed, and disease control rate was 36%. Median PFS and OS were 1.7 and 4.3 months, respectively. In multivariate analysis, PS was the only independent prognostic factor. For patients PS 0-1 versus 2-3, median PFS was 3.0 versus 1.2 months (log rank, p = 0.002), and median OS was 5.9 versus 2.6 months (log rank, p = 0.001). Conclusions: This study suggests that FOLFOX second-line therapy offered interesting efficacy results with an acceptable toxicity profile in metastatic PC patients with a good PS.