Two treatments being tested in clinical trials are raising hopes for patients with pancreatic cancer, which has long been one of the most dire diagnoses in oncology.
Researchers presented the promising data this week at a cancer conference in San Diego. The data was collected from a small number of patients and has not yet been published in a medical journal or reviewed by regulators. Neither drug has been approved for use.
Cancer of the pancreas, the gland buried deep in the abdomen that is involved in digestion and regulates blood sugar, kills more than 50,000 Americans each year, accounting for about 8 percent of cancer deaths in the United States. Many patients die within a year of diagnosis, and only 13 percent of people live for five years after being diagnosed.
There are few treatment options, and those that are available often do little to help, which is why the new drugs are generating so much excitement.
“We are having to tell ourselves that this is in fact unprecedented,” said Dr. Robert Vonderheide, director of the Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania, who was not involved in the new research.
One of the experimental drugs, daraxonrasib, doubled diagnosed patients’ life expectancy, giving them over 13 months, compared to less than seven months for those who received chemotherapy in a late-stage clinical trial, according to Revolution Medicines, the company developing the drug.