Immunomodulatory Effect after Irreversible Electroporation in Patients with Locally Advanced Pancreatic Cancer

He, Chaobin; Wang, Jun; Sun, Shuxin; Zhang, Yu; Li, Shengping

. . Patients. This study was retrospectively designed. Consecutive patients who were newly diagnosed with LAPC at Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center between August 2015 and August 2017 were included in this study. The inclusion criteria were as follows: (1) pathologically confirmed pancreatic adenocarcinoma and radiologically confirmed LAPC. LAPC was defined per the seventh edition of the AJCC staging system for pancreatic cancer, which describes LAPC as arterial encasement of either the celiac axis or superior mesenteric artery or unreconstructable superior mesenteric or portal vein involvement, with no evidence of metastatic disease from abdominal and thoracic computed tomography [17, 18] ; (2) IRE therapy as the initial treatment. A total of 11 patients were excluded based on the following exclusion criteria: (1) other treatments, including surgical resection and RFA before IRE (seven patients); (2) existing metastatic implants before IRE (one patient); (3) heart arrhythmia and a history of second primary malignant tumors (one patient); (4) missing information of parameters or lost to follow-up (two patients). This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center. All procedures performed in present study involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of institutional and/or national research committees and the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or similar ethical standards. Written informed consent was obtained from patients prior to treatment.