Are We There Yet? - Alternating Chemotherapy Regimens in Pancreatic Cancer.

In the randomized phase 2 SEQUENCE trial in patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer, reported in this issue of NEJM Evidence, the authors compared therapy with alternating FOLFOX and nab-paclitaxel/gemcitabine chemotherapy versus standard-of-care, single-regimen nab-paclitaxel/gemcitabine therapy.1 They were testing the idea that because most tumor cells express both basal and classic markers, alternating treatment would target both cell populations and thus confer a survival benefit. The trial, which enrolled 157 patients, met the primary end point of an overall survival rate at 12 months of 55.3% in the alternating treatment group compared with 35.4% in the standard-of-care group.