Up to date no standard treatment is available for pancreatic cancer. Although gemcitabine is commonly used in patients with pancreatic cancer with the purpose of symptom palliation, there is no clear evidence of efficacy in terms of survival increase or progression control. Furthermore, attempts at improving results by combining gemcitabine with other cytotoxic drugs failed to obtain any advantage. Recently, an EGFR inhibitor (erlotinib) showed a small survival advantage when combined with gemcitabine. results obtained with a combination of gemcitabine and oxaliplatin seem more promising. A meta-analysis of randomised trials comparing gemcitabine versus gemcitabine and platinum analogues showed a statistical significant survival advantage for the combination.