A New Treatment for Pancreatic Cancer
People are devastated when they’re told they have pancreatic cancer. That’s because it’s usually diagnosed in the later stages when cancer has spread and survival rates plummet.
Even early detection puts the 5-year survival rate at just 40 percent. It’s the third leading cancer death behind lung and colon. Surgery, radiation and chemo are all used to treat pancreatic cancer, as well as immunotherapy. Now researchers are hopeful about a new treatment that targets KRAS, an oncogene.
When cells divide out of control, mutant oncogenes could be the cause. For pancreatic cancer, nearly all these tumors have a mutated KRAS gene. One mutation being studied is the KRAS G-twelve-C, which changes certain amino acids in the KRAS protein. New clinical trials are using drugs that turn off the mutated versions of the KRAS protein.
In studies with early-stage patients, more than a quarter saw partial reduction in their tumors, while some responded even better. Their tumors stopped growing for 9 months before restarting again. Scientists think they can build on this success.
Another treatment being studied for pancreatic cancer is “personalized vaccines,” which use the patient’s tumor cells to develop custom immune responses. Clinical trials have begun, and people are hopeful since the same approach has shown promise in other cancers.
Investment in biomedical science will take us toward a future where one day, pancreatic cancer is no longer a death sentence.
More Information
New Treatments Give Hope to Patients With One of the Deadliest Cancers
Pranathi Perati was running out of time to treat her stage-four pancreatic cancer when she found out she would get another shot: a clinical trial testing a new experimental drug. Perati’s odds were slim—only 3% of late-stage pancreatic cancer patients are still alive after five years. And half of all pancreatic cancer patients live for less than a year after their diagnosis. For Perati, the drug, daraxonrasib from Revolution Medicines, has helped keep her alive for 17 months and counting.
RNA neoantigen vaccines prime long-lived CD8+ T cells in pancreatic cancer
A fundamental challenge for cancer vaccines is to generate long-lived functional T cells that are specific for tumour antigens. Here we find that mRNA–lipoplex vaccines against somatic mutation-derived neoantigens may solve this challenge in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), a lethal cancer with few mutations.
Preliminary activity and safety results of KRAS G12C inhibitor glecirasib (JAB-21822) in patients with pancreatic cancer and other solid tumors
Glecirasib monotherapy is well tolerated and has a manageable safety profile and exhibits promising anti-tumor activity in pts with KRAS G12C mutated PDAC and other solid tumors. Further clinical development of glecirasib in above mentioned population is ongoing.