A domestic research team has found that a combination of anticancer chemotherapy and high dose radiation therapy could be very effective to treat pancreatic cancer patients.

The team at Severance Hospital in Seoul on Monday said it conducted chemotherapy along with tomotherapy on 39 inoperable pancreatic cancer patients and their survival time increased by an average of 21 months, compared to the ordinary average of six months.

The team said the size of tumors was reduced in most of the patients, and tumors shrank by roughly half their original size in about 50 percent of the patients.

The team noted the patients in its research showed the longest survival time so far.