Nab-paclitaxel as second-line treatment in advanced biliary cancer

463 Background: Addition of nab-paclitaxel to gemcitabine has recently been demonstrated in the clinical phase III trial MPACT to be beneficial for progression free survival, overall response rate, and overall survival in advanced pancreatic cancer patients. Any potential biologic activity of nab-paclitaxel in biliary cancer is hitherto unknown. Methods: A retrospective analysis of patients with advanced biliary cancer was undertaken to determine the disease control rate (CR+PR+SD), progression-free survival and overall survival in patients who had received nab-paclitaxel-based chemotherapy after failure of a platinum-containing first-line combination chemotherapy. Results: Eleven patients were identified. 4 of 11 patients received nab-paclitaxel as second line, 7 of 11 patients as a third-line treatment. 7 of 11 patients received nab-paclitaxel in combination with gemcitabine, while in 4 of 11 patients nab-paclitaxel was combined with fluoropyrimidine. The disease control rate seen with nab-paclitaxel was 81% (nine of eleven patients). Disease was progressive in one patient, and in one patient the response status is unknown yet. One patient received partial remission and 8 patients had stable disease. As of September 13th, 2014, three patients are still undergoing nab-paclitaxel combination therapy, but were censored by this date for analysis. The median time to progression was 4.9 months (2.3 – 18.9 months) for all patients (11/11 pts.), and 9.5 months for patients completed nab-paclitaxel treatment (8/11 pts.). Median overall survival for all eleven patients after initiation of nab-paclitaxel treatment was 7.3 month (2.6 – 21.8 month). The mean time of survival after diagnosis of advanced disease was 21.3 month, whereby 5 patients were alive at date of censoring. Conclusions: Nab-paclitaxel based chemotherapy can be an effective second-line regimen after platinum-failure in patients with advanced biliary cancer. In this small series, nab-paclitaxel appears to have a biological activity by controlling the disease and positively affecting survival. Randomized trials in this group of patients are urged.