INTRODUCTION
deaths, pancreatic cancer, PDAC
DISEASE, PANCREATIC CANCER
U.S. mortality from pancreatic cancer is expected to be 50,550 annually in 2023, accounting for 8% of all cancer‐related deaths.Neoadjuvant therapy has been readily adopted by many institutions in recent years in the U.S., especially for borderline resectable patients who are at higher risk of positive surgical margins and future disease relapse.FOLFIRINOX, gemcitabine with capecitabine, and concurrent gemcitabine or fluoropyrimidine with radiation have all been evaluated as potential neoadjuvant treatment strategies in phase 2 or 3 trials for patients with borderline resectable PDAC, noting resection rates of 55%–67% and final margin‐negative (R0) resection of 23%–65%.Therefore, we conducted a phase 2 trial using nab‐paclitaxel and gemcitabine followed by chemoradiation with fluoropyrimidine to test the feasibility and clinical outcomes of this novel neoadjuvant regimen in patients with borderline resectable and clinically node‐positive PDAC at our institution. We anticipated the proposed neoadjuvant treatment would increase R0 resection to 56% from a prior historical rate of 37%, which was a lower‐limit estimate among published neoadjuvant trials.