The benefit of adjuvant radiotherapy on overall survival in resected stage I to II pancreatic cancer: A propensity-adjusted analysis.

BackgroundThe survival time of patients with early pancreatic cancer (PC) is still disappointing, even after surgical resection. PC has an extremely poor prognosis. Herein, we aimed to investigate the survival effect of postoperative radiotherapy (PORT) on resected stage I to II PC.Material and methodsA large eligible sample of patients was identified from 2010 to 2015 from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) registry. Survival analysis was conducted to evaluate the efficiency of PORT. Propensity score matching (PSM) analysis was used to reduce selection bias and to make the groups comparable.ResultsA total of 3219 patients with resected stage I to II PC was included after rigid screening. The median overall survival (OS) was 26 months with PORT (n = 1055) versus 21 months with non-PORT (n = 2164) before matching (pConclusionAddition of PORT to the treatment of patients with resected stage I to II PC conveys a survival benefit, particularly among those with N-positive or stage IIB disease