Background Pancreatic cancer is one of the most deadly forms of cancer. Standard treatment in metastatic disease is the quemotherapy with gemcitabine, but there is not a standard therapy for gemcitabine-refractory patients.

Purpose Assess the off-label efficacy of nab-paclitaxel, in patients who progressed on gemcitabine-based therapy, in our hospital.

Materials and Methods Observational retrospective study of pancreatic cancer patients treated with nab-paclitaxel who progressed on gemcitabine-based therapy from June 2011 to April 2012. Data were collected from clinical history, Oncofarm^® and Omega3MIL^® programmes. We determined: Progression free survival (PFS) and Overall Survival (OS). 12 patients (100% male) were treated with nab-paclitaxel. Eleven of them presented metastatic desease. The patients were treated with two therapies:

• nab-paclitaxel 100 mg/m² (1.8,15/28d). 5 patients received this treatment. Median age was 79.4 years (sd = 4.2 years)

• Gemcitabine 1000 mg/m² plus nab-paclitaxel 100 mg/m² (1.8,15/28d): 7 patients received this treatment; Median age was 65.5 years (sd = 6.9 years).

Results Median PFS was 2,8 months (95% CI, 1.5 to 4.1 months) with single agent, and 5.3 months (95% CI, 4.0 to 6.5 months) with gemcitabine plus nab-paclitaxel. The PFS in the study was 20% and 83% respectively. The OS couldn’t be determine in the nab-paclitaxel group, because there wasn’t any event during the study period. The OS with gemcitabine plus nab-paclitaxel was 66.7%.

Conclusions

• It showed better clinical outcomes in the gemcitabine plus nab-paclitaxel group in PFS.

• The nab-paclitaxel can be an effective second-line chemotherapy in gemcitabine resistant patients.

No conflict of interest.