Guide to intra-arterial infusion chemotherapy for pancreatic cancers (draft text)

Pancreatic cancer is one of most malignant solid tumors. Trans-arterial infusion chemotherapy has been used for the inoperable pancreatic cancers. The local drug concentration in intra-arterial infusion chemotherapy is much higher than that in intravenous chemotherapy. Thus, a better therapeutic effect can be surely achieved, the disease-related symptoms can be well improved, the patient's survival time can be markedly prolonged, and the liver metastases can be effectively reduced. This paper aims to suggest a more detailed and standardized therapeutic scheme to perform intra-arterial infusion chemotherapy for inoperable pancreatic cancers, focusing on the relevant concept, contraindications, indications, preoperative preparation, methods of operation, postoperative treatment, the prevention and treatment of complications, etc. The scheme will help domestic interventional physicians to make reasonable decisions in their clinical practice. Of course, the scheme proposed here is not a mandatory standard, and it can not resolve all the problems which might be encountered in employing intra-arterial infusion chemotherapy for patients with inoperable pancreatic cancer. Therefore, the interventional physicians should fully understand the most useful medical evidence of a given patient and sincerely take the patient's own will into consideration before an individualized and reasonable therapeutic plan is able to be worked out. (authors)