Impact of Short-Course Palliative Radiation Therapy on Pancreatic Cancer-Related Pain Prospective Phase 2 Nonrandomized PAINPANC Trial

Purpose: Clinical evidence is limited regarding palliative radiation therapy for relieving pancreatic cancer-related pain. We prospectively investigated pain response after short-course palliative radiation therapy in patients with moderate-to-severe pancreatic cancer-related pain. Methods and Materials: In this prospective phase 2 single center nonrandomized trial, 30 patients with moderate-to-severe pain (5-10, on a 0-10 scale) of pancreatic cancer refractory to pain medication, were treated with a short-course palliative radiation therapy; 24 Gy in 3 weekly fractions (2015-2018). Primary endpoint was defined as a clinically relevant average decrease of >= 2 points in pain severity, compared with baseline, within 7 weeks after the start of treatment. Secondary endpoint was global quality of life (QoL), with a clinically relevant increase of 5 to 10 points (0-100 scale). Pain severity reduction and QoL were assessed 9 times using the Brief Pain Inventory and European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionnaire-C15-PAL, respectively. Both outcomes were analyzed using joint modeling. In addition, acute toxicity Results: Overall, 29 of 30 patients (96.7%) received palliative radiation therapy. At baseline, the median oral morphine equiva(P = .021). Pain decreased on average 3.15 points from baseline to 7 weeks (one-sided P = .045). Patients reported a clinically relevant mean pain severity reduction from 5.9 to 3.8 points (P = .011) during the first 3 weeks, which further decreased to 3.2 until week 11, ending at 3.4 (P = .006) in week 21 after the first radiation therapy fraction. Global QoL significantly improved from 50.5 to 60.8 during the follow-up period (P = .001). Grade 3 acute toxicity occurred in 3 patients , no grade 4 to 5 tox- icity was observed. Median OS was 11.8 weeks, with a 13.3% 1 -year actuarial OS rate. Conclusions: Short -course palliative radiation therapy for pancreatic cancer -related pain was associated with rapid, clinically relevant reduction in pain severity , clinically relevant improvement in global QoL, with mostly mild toxicity. (c) 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)