Recurrence and Survival Prediction Models for Receiving Preoperative Chemotherapy Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma Cancer: A Single-center Retrospective Research

Purpose: Regard preoperative chemotherapy as a holistic sequential treatment modality to identify predictive factors associated with recurrence and survival in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) and construct models to provide decision support and treatment selection for the candidate patients. Methods: Retrospect PDAC patients who received preoperative chemotherapy from January 2016 to June 2023 at the Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University School of Medicine. Run a univariate and multivariate analysis of factors associated with recurrence-free survival (RFS) and overall survival (OS). Scoring systems were developed based on the hazard ratios (HR) of all significant predictors. Kaplan–Meier analyses and log-rank tests were used to calculate RFS and OS. Results: A total of 72 PDAC patients with preoperative chemotherapy were analyzed. After preoperative chemotherapy, 21(29.17%) patients achieved any radiologic downstaging with 68(94.44%) patients achieving negative resection margin status (R0 margins). For carbohydrate antigen 19-9(CA19-9) non-secreting patients, shrinkage rate of length diameter of tumor≥20%(P=0.027), resection margin status(P=0.011) were independent predictors of OS. And for CA19-9 secreting patients, CA19-9 serum level at the end of chemotherapy≥1000(P=0.027) and resection margin status (P=0.012) were independent predictors of OS. Points according HR were allocated to these factors in the proposed scoring system, respectively. Recurrence curves and survival curves with statistically significant differences were also presented for patients grouped according to the scoring systems. For CA19-9 non-secreting patients, the OS of patients with a score from 2 to 2.97 was significantly shorter than that of patients with a score from 4.94 to 5.91 (P=0.009). And for CA19-9 secreting patients, the OS of patients with a score of 2 was significantly shorter than that of patients with a score from 3.75 to 4.99 (P<0.001). Conclusion: Simple scoring models for RFS and OS incorporating CA19-9 serum levels or the tumor shrinkage rate and postoperative pathology may assist clinicians in evaluating prognosis of PDAC patients with preoperative chemotherapy.