© 2025 HSP News Service, L.L.C.
High levels of expression of the human equilibrative nucleoside transporter 1 (hENT1) were associated with longer median survival of patients with pancreatic adenocarcinoma receiving gemcitabine, according to an analysis of clinical data and cancer tissue collected from the European Study Group for ...
Loss of 18q22.3 is a prognostic marker in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma. In a study reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Giovannetti and colleagues assessed the role of 18q22.3-encoded CYB5A in pancreatic cancer prognosis and autophagy modulation. In the study, both resected ...
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded a 5-year grant of more than $1.5 million to Herbert J. Zeh III, MD, and Michael T. Lotze, MD, at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (UPCI), partner with UPMC CancerCenter, to study a novel treatment for pancreatic ductal ...
Overall survival was improved in metastatic pancreatic cancer patients through an innovative immunotherapy strategy in a multicenter study reported at the 2014 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium.1 “This is the first time a randomized study has shown that immunotherapy is effective in pancreatic...
More than 650 studies were presented at the 2014 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium, which attracted a multidisciplinary group of more than 3,500 medical, surgical, and radiation oncologists and gastroenterologists. The following briefs highlight a handful of noteworthy studies from the meeting....
I’ve been health conscious all my life. I have never smoked, I eat a healthy diet, and I have maintained a near-daily exercise routine since I was 20. I’m also steadfast about keeping yearly medical checkups and screenings. So when I felt a sharp, lightning-bolt of pain that went from the top of my ...
The ASCO Cancer Research Committee recently convened four disease-specific working groups—in pancreas, breast, lung, and colon cancers—to “consider the design of future clinical trials that would produce results that are clinically meaningful to patients.” An ASCO perspective statement, reported in ...
The information in this Clinical Trials Resource Guide includes details of actively recruiting clinical studies of patients with pancreatic cancer. All of the studies are listed on the National Institutes of Health website at ClinicalTrials.gov. The studies presented here are nonrandomized,...
Pancreatic cancer still kills 40,000 Americans a year out of approximately 44,000 diagnosed. While advances in diagnosis and treatment are extending the lives of patients with other cancers, pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma remains the second most lethal tumor (behind lung cancer). While a magic...
The addition of the novel agent MM-398 to standard treatment improved overall survival in patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer who have already received gemcitabine, according to a phase III trial reported at the ESMO 16th World Congress on Gastrointestinal Cancer in Barcelona.1 “Patients...
A large DNA analysis of people with and without pancreatic cancer has identified several new genetic markers that signal increased risk of developing the disease, report scientists from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and other institutions worldwide. The markers are variations in the inherited DNA...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Fast Track designation for Halozyme Therapeutics’ program investigating pegylated recombinant human hyaluronidase (PEGPH20) in combination with gemcitabine and albumin-bound paclitaxel (nab-paclitaxel [Abraxane]) for the treatment of patients...
Researchers at the Salk Institute have reported on a synthetic derivative of vitamin D able to collapse the barrier of cells shielding pancreatic tumors, making this challenging cancer more susceptible to therapeutic drugs. The discovery has led to human trials for pancreatic cancer, even in...
Two-thirds of patients with advanced pancreatic adenocarcinoma who harbored BRCA mutations responded to the combination of veliparib, cisplatin, and gemcitabine in a phase IB trial that is paving the way for future studies of novel poly(ADP-ribose) polymerases (PARP) inhibitors in this challenging...
Vitamin D deficiency was highly prevalent among patients newly diagnosed with advanced pancreatic cancer, and black patients had statistically significantly lower levels than white patients, according to a recent study reported by Katherine Van Loon, MD, MPH, of the UCSF Helen Diller Family...
In a study reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Demir and colleagues used novel three-dimensional migration and Schwann cell outgrowth assays to monitor the timing and specificity of Schwann cell migration and cancer invasion toward peripheral neurons through digital...
Adenocarcinoma of the pancreas is the fourth leading cause of cancer death in men and women in the United States. This year, about 46,000 people in this country will be diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and more than 39,000 will die of the disease. The ASCO Post recently spoke with Margaret A....
New research that provides a better understanding of pancreatic cancer may help identify individuals at increased risk. The findings were recently published early online in Cancer.1 Pancreatic cancer is usually detected at a very late stage and has a 5-year survival rate of less than 5%. Strategies ...
Targeting of oncogenes can produce tumor shrinkage, but the frequency of relapse indicates that a population of tumor cells survives oncogene inhibition. In a study in a KRAS-mutant pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma mouse model reported in Nature, Viale and colleagues found that a subpopulation of...
In a study reported in Clinical Cancer Research, Karnak and colleagues found that WEE1 kinase inhibition increased the sensitivity of pancreas cancer to the radiosensitizing effects of poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibition. Treatment of human pancreatic cancer AsPC-1 and MiaPaCa-2 cells...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Fast Track designation to the investigation of necuparanib as a first-line treatment in combination with paclitaxel and gemcitabine in patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer. Necuparanib is a novel oncology drug candidate engineered from...
The choice between FOLFIRINOX (fluorouracil [5-FU], leucovorin, irinotecan, oxaliplatin) vs the combination of gemcitabine and nanoparticle albumin-bound (nab)-paclitaxel (Abraxane) for first-line treatment of metastatic pancreatic cancer is not much of a contest, judging by a discussion of...
A less intensive regimen of nab-paclitaxel (Abraxane) plus gemcitabine appears to be as efficacious as the standard regimen in first-line treatment for metastatic pancreatic cancer, but less toxic and far less expensive, according to a study that earned a Merit Award at the 2015 Gastrointestinal...
Investigators from Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Florida, have reported an approach to pancreatic cancer that downstages some locally advanced patients to borderline resectable status and achieves a negative surgical margin rate exceeding 96%. The study earned a Merit Award at the 2015...
Targeting one of the deadliest cancers and seeking to fill an unmet need, drug development in pancreatic cancer is an area of high interest. This was certainly the case at the 2015 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium, where results were impressive for some novel agents but disappointing for several...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Orphan Drug designation for Oncolytics Biotech’s proprietary formulation of the human reovirus (Reolysin) for the treatment of ovarian and pancreatic cancer. The reovirus’s primary mode of activity is to infect and selectively target tumors...
The 2015 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium, held January 15–17 in San Francisco, attracted almost 4,000 attendees, who heard or viewed data from nearly 800 scientific abstracts and lectures. Here are our summaries of some of the many important developments from the meeting. Bevacizumab Plus...
Dr. Are extended to me the opportunity to make additional comments about his article. I am the husband of the most wonderful Mrs. X he discusses. As always, Dr. Are’s comments are very kind and generous. Three Roles Based on my experience and observations, I would like to mention three roles a...
The first time I met Mrs. X and her husband was to discuss the surgical treatment options for pancreatic cancer. She had just been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer at her local hospital and was being referred to a tertiary care center for operative management. Mrs. X and her husband were no...
Results of clinical trials evaluating chemotherapy regimens for advanced pancreatic and lung cancers “tended to correctly estimate survival for Medicare patients aged 65 to 74 years but to overestimate survival for older Medicare patients by 6 to 8 weeks,” Elizabeth B. Lamont, MD, MS, of...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Fast Track designation for the development of evofosfamide (TH-302), administered in combination with gemcitabine, for previously untreated patients with metastatic or locally advanced unresectable pancreatic cancer. Evofosfamide is an...
The ability to do genomic analysis of patients’ tumors holds great promise for revolutionizing cancer treatment, and genomics has already made some great strides. However, the Individualized Molecular Pancreatic Cancer Therapy (IMPaCT) trial is a cautionary tale about the hurdles involved in...
For 2 decades, the NCCN Guidelines® have been recognized as the standard of cancer care in the United States, combining evidence, experience, and choice, so that multidisciplinary cancer treatment teams—including patients—are empowered to make informed decisions about cancer care,” said Robert W....
Patients with stage IV pancreatic cancer who received a novel enzyme along with standard chemotherapy experienced a doubling in progression-free survival, compared to those given chemotherapy alone, in a study presented at the 2015 ASCO Annual Meeting.1 Response rates and median duration of...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved irinotecan liposome injection (Onivyde), in combination with fluorouracil (5-FU) and leucovorin, to treat patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer who have been previously treated with gemcitabine-based chemotherapy. The effectiveness of...
In the Clinic provides overviews of novel oncology agents, addressing indications, mechanisms, administration recommendations, safety profiles, and other essential information needed for the appropriate clinical use of these drugs. On October 22, 2015, irinotecan liposome injection (Onivyde)...
The information contained in this Clinical Trials Resource Guide includes actively recruiting clinical studies for patients with pancreatic cancer. The trials are investigating preoperative rehabilitation; chimeric antigen receptors; T-cell transplants; combination chemotherapy; chemoradiotherapy; ...
In the phase III NAPOLI-1 trial reported in The Lancet, Wang-Gillam et al found that the addition of nanoliposomal irinotecan (Onivyde) to fluorouracil (5-FU) and folinic acid (leucovorin) resulted in improved overall survival in patients with metastatic pancreatic ductal cancer who had received...
In a phase II study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Catenacci et al found no benefit of adding vismodegib (Erivedge) to gemcitabine in patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer. Sonic hedgehog (SHH), an activating ligand of the smoothened receptor (SMO) inhibited by vismodegib, has...
In a retrospective analysis of data from 130 patients with pancreatic cysts, scientists at Johns Hopkins have used gene-based tests and a fixed set of clinical criteria to more accurately distinguish precancerous cysts from those less likely to do harm. The findings may eventually help some...
A study at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center may explain why chemotherapy drugs such as gemcitabine are not effective for many patients with pancreatic cancer and perhaps point to new approaches to treatment, including enhancing gemcitabine's ability to stop tumor growth. The MD...
Only 1 in 5 patients with pancreatic cancer in the United States receives a widely available, inexpensive blood test at diagnosis that can help predict relative outcome (compared to others with the same disease stage) and guide treatment accordingly, a Mayo Clinic study showed. People who test...
A new study in mice by researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center has found that a specialized type of immunotherapy—even when used without chemotherapy or radiation—can boost survival from pancreatic cancer by more than 75%. The findings are promising, and human clinical...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today approved irinotecan liposome injection (Onivyde), in combination with fluorouracil (5-FU) and leucovorin, to treat patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer who have been previously treated with gemcitabine-based chemotherapy. According to the National...
In a randomized phase II trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Hurwitz et al found no significant survival benefit of adding the JAK1/JAK2 inhibitor ruxolitinib (Jakafi) to capecitabine in patients with advanced pancreatic adenocarcinoma who had treatment failure with gemcitabine....
The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) and the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network announced the opening of the 2016 Research Grants Program to support early-career investigators to focus on pancreatic cancer. Two grant mechanisms, the Pathway to Leadership Grant and the Career...
Assessing blood plasma levels of certain microRNAs (miRNAs) distinguished individuals with noninvasive pancreatic precancers from healthy individuals and discriminated between patients with high-risk and low-risk neoplasms, according to a preliminary, proof-of-principle study published by...
A multi-institutional study has found a new set of genes that may indicate improved survival after surgery for patients with pancreatic cancer. The study also showed that detection of circulating tumor DNA in the blood could provide an early indication of tumor recurrence. In conjunction with the...
Scientists at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center have identified a molecular partnership in pancreatic cancer cells that might help to explain how the disease metastasizes in some cases. Their findings reveal urgently needed new targets to treat pancreatic cancer and were published by Foley et...
A team of researchers at Barts Cancer Institute–Queen Mary University of London has discovered a combination of three proteins found at high levels in urine that can accurately detect early-stage pancreatic cancer. The discovery could lead to a noninvasive, inexpensive test to...