A trial looking at cetuximab and radiotherapy for pancreatic cancer (PACER)

This study looked at conformal radiotherapy combined with a new biological therapy called cetuximab as a treatment for pancreatic cancer that had not grown outside the pancreas (localised pancreatic cancer). This trial was supported by Cancer Research UK.

If you cannot have surgery to remove your pancreatic cancer and it hasn’t spread to other parts of your body, doctors may suggest treatment with radiotherapy on its own, or with chemotherapy. But unfortunately, the cancer can continue to grow and spread despite treatment. So doctors are keen to see if newer treatments have better results.

Cetuximab (Erbitux) is a type of biological therapy, called a monoclonal antibody. Doctors have tested it in people with head and neck cancers and bowel cancer, and the results were promising. They hoped that cetuximab would help radiotherapy to work better for people with pancreatic cancer.

In this trial people had cetuximab with conformal radiotherapy. This is a different way of planning and giving radiotherapy. It uses computer technology that allows the cancer to be seen in 3 dimensions (3D). This helps to shape the radiotherapy beam so it fits more exactly to the area where the cancer is.

The aims of this trial were to find out how well cetuximab and conformal radiotherapy worked together for localised pancreatic cancer and to find out more about the side effects.