'Breakthrough' in treating pancreatic cancer

26th January 2017 – Scientists say they have made a significant breakthrough in treating pancreatic cancer.

They say a combination of two chemotherapy drugs may help people with the disease live for many more weeks than those who receive only one of the drugs.

Poor survival rates

Pancreatic cancer is the fifth most common cause of cancer death in the UK. Only around 20% of people survive for a year or more after being diagnosed.

Latest figures show that around 9,400 people are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer each year in the UK and around 8,800 people die from the disease annually.

One of the reasons why survival rates are poor is that pancreatic cancer is often quite advanced by the time it is spotted.

Living for 2.5 months longer

In 2008, a trial was set up to try to address these poor rates of survival. It involved 732 patients with pancreatic cancer in 92 hospitals in the UK, Germany, Sweden and France.

Around half the volunteers received the chemotherapy drug gemcitabine. The remainder were given gemcitabine together with another chemotherapy drug, capecitabine.

Average survival rates for patients given the combination of both drugs was 28 months, compared with 25.5 months for those only taking gemcitabine.

Reporting the results in The Lancet medical journal, the researchers estimate that the chances of people living for 5 years were 28.8% for those who took both drugs compared with 16.3% for those on only one drug.

However, commentators have pointed out that not everyone in the trial was followed up for as long as 5 years, making this estimate hard to establish.

'One of the biggest breakthroughs'

In a statement, Professor John Neoptolemos from the University of Liverpool, who led the trial, says: "This is one of the biggest ever breakthroughs prolonging survival for pancreatic cancer patients. When this combination becomes the new standard of care, it will give many patients living with the disease valuable months and even years.

"The difference in short term survival may seem modest, but improvement in long-term survival is substantial for this type of cancer."

The researchers say there was no significant difference in side-effects between those on both drugs and those on only one, although severe cases of diarrhoea were more common among those taking both.

They recommend that the two-drug combination should be "the new standard of care" for people who have undergone surgery for pancreatic cancer.

Several of the researchers report links with pharmaceutical companies.

A 'key to improving survival'

Professor Peter Johnson, chief clinician at Cancer Research UK, which funded the study, adds in a statement: "Pancreatic cancer is a notoriously difficult disease to treat. Nearly 10,000 patients are diagnosed each year in the UK so we urgently need new ways to treat and manage the disease.

"Research that tells us more about how the disease grows and spreads, and trials like this one will be key to improve survival for patients living with the disease."