Immunotherapy of Pancreatic Cancer with Monoclonal Antibody BW 494: Results from a Multicentric Phase I–II Trial

In this age of modern diagnostic procedures and highly developed conservative and surgical therapeutic strategies in oncology, pancreatic carcinoma of ductal origin is still almost invariably an incurable disease [1, 2]. A characteristic tumor biology with regard to growth behavior, metastatic mode, and unspecific symptoms in the initial stage are responsible for this poor prognosis [3–5]. The incurability of pancreatic cancer is duly emphasized by the evaluation of data collected from 15 000 patients. These statistics show that after 5 years, independent of the type of therapy, a total of 60 patients (0.4% with 5-year survival) were still alive [2]. Only about 10%–20% of the patients are able to undergo a potentially curative operation in the form of a partial or total pancreatoduodenectomy [1, 2, 6–9]. The therapeutic dilemma is further characterized by the lack of response to chemo- or radiotherapy [10–15].