NCCN Updates Pancreatic Adenocarcinoma Guidelines

JENKINTOWN, Pa., November 26, 2007 — The National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) announces important updates to the NCCN Pancreatic Adenocarcinoma Guidelines. The NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology™ are widely recognized and applied as the standard of care in oncology in the United States in both the community and the academic practice settings.

These NCCN Guidelines feature a new section covering principles of palliation and supportive care. This is an especially important addition since a significant subset of patients with advanced pancreatic cancer will require substantial palliative interventions, including management of symptoms due to biliary obstruction, gastric outlet obstruction and severe tumor-associated abdominal pain.

In addition, greater emphasis has been placed on the use of neoadjuvant therapy in patients with borderline resectable pancreatic adenocarcinoma. The new version of the guidelines contains a separate decision pathway to provide more specific guidance when neoadjuvant therapy is planned for patients with borderline resectable disease. This pathway includes a clarifying, corresponding footnote stating that “The majority of NCCN institutions prefer upfront neoadjuvant therapy in the setting of borderline resectable disease.”

NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology™ are developed and updated through an evidence-based process with explicit review of the scientific evidence by multidisciplinary panels of expert physicians from NCCN Member Institutions. The most recent version of this and all the guidelines are available free of charge at www.nccn.org.