With a worldwide incidence of approximately 496,000 new cases and 466,000 deaths in 2020, pancreatic cancer is among the most deadliest of cancers. The majority of patients present with an advanced stage of cancer at diagnosis. This includes 30-40% of patients with locally advanced pancreatic cancer (LAPC), due to extensive perivascular tumor infiltration without distant metastases.

This thesis evaluates treatment strategies and clinical outcomes in patients with locally advanced pancreatic cancer (LAPC) in current clinical practice, investigates tools for selecting patients who will benefit chemotherapy, and prepares for the PELICAN trial: a randomized controlled trial investigating the efficacy of radiofrequency ablation in combination with chemotherapy in patients with LAPC.

Part 1 Current treatment strategies
This part provides a literature overview and evaluates the results of FOLFIRINOX-based treatment for patients with LAPC. From literature, the resection rate after FOLFIRINOX is 28% and median overall survival ranges between 8.9 and 25.0 months. Selection bias occurres in the included studies. Therefore a Dutch multicenter registry including unselected patients with LAPC was initiated. In total 77% of all patients start chemotherapy treatment after the diagnosis of LAPC. Most patients (77%) are able to receive FOLFIRINOX and have a median overall survival of 14 months. A proportion of 13% undergoes a resection after FOLFIRINOX with a median overall survival of 23 months.

Part 2 Outcome prediction and patient selection
In this part prediction models are developed to predict at baseline, those patients with favorable outcomes after FOLFIRINOX chemotherapy. Overall survival is difficult to predict at baseline, but positively influenced by older age, female sex, less comorbidity and a CA19.9