Pancreatic Enzyme Replacement and Nutritional Support With nab-Paclitaxel-based First-Line Chemotherapy Regimens in Metastatic Pancreatic Cancer

Abstract

Background: At diagnosis, more than 80% of patients with pancreatic cancer (PC) suffer from significant weight loss due to malnutrition which is a major concern for patient management, and this may negatively impact treatment outcomes and patient prognosis. Patients and Methods: We performed an observational, retrospective study on patients with metastatic PC (mPC) undergoing first-line chemotherapy with nab-Paclitaxel containing schedules and receiving or not receiving nutritional support (NS) and pancreatic enzyme replacement therapy (PERT) to investigate their relevance in this setting. Results: We observed that PERT and ancillary dietary interventions are related to longer overall survival (OS; median: 16.5 vs. 7.5 months, P