Spotlight on Liposomal Irinotecan for Metastatic Pancreatic Cancer: Patient Selection and Perspectives

CONCLUSION

Pancreatic cancer is a highly lethal disease, with high rates of mortality. Extensive efforts have been made to advance therapy, but therapy options for patients who are refractory to first-line treatments are limited. Nanoliposomal irinotecan (nal-IRI) has been approved by the FDA and has been shown to improve overall median and PFS in NAPOLI-1, and subsequent real-life experience studies. Nal-IRI is associated with multiple adverse effects, most notably diarrhea, nausea, vomiting and myelosuppression, which are manageable in clinical practice. Recent data suggest that introducing nal-IRI early in the treatment paradigm significantly improved median OS and PFS. Multiple clinical trials are currently being conducted to use liposomal irinotecan in the early stage of pancreatic cancer and in other disease states.

Disclosure

Minsig Choi has served as consultant and speaker for Ipsen and Celgene. The authors report no other conflicts of interest in this work.

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Wonhee Woo, Edward T Carey, Minsig Choi

Division of Hematology/Oncology, Department of Medicine, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, USA

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Source: OncoTargets and Therapy

Originally published January 15, 2019.