Pancreatic Cancer: A New Way to Treat the Disease

Christie GwaltneyEnglish 302

Pancreatic Cancer

“The American Cancer Society estimates that 42,470 Americans will be diagnosed with pancreatic cancer during 2009.”

The Dangers of Pancreatic Cancer

• only curable when found in its earliest stages, and before the cancer has begun to spread to other organs in the body.

• If the cancer has spread, palliative treatment can improve the patient's quality of life by controlling the symptoms and complications.

• There is only one type of restorative treatment, and that is surgical resection.

The Dangers of Pancreatic Cancer, cont’d

• However, most patients present with advanced stages of this disease are not candidates for surgery

• Even though there are treatments such as chemotherapy and surgical resection, the survival rate is still very slim.

Survival Rates

• In the local/resectable stage, the median survival rate is 17 months.

• In the local/nonresectable stage, the median survival rate is 8-9 months.

• In the metastatic stage, the median survival rate is only 4-6 months.

Chemotherapy

• Chemotherapy uses drugs to kill cancer cells, and maybe given by mouth or injection into a muscle or a vein.

• Gemcitabine is a chemotherapy drug often used to treat pancreatic cancer.

• It has been displayed, in many controlled clinical trials, to improve quality of life.

• Many types of cancer respond well to chemotherapy and are often cured.

Hypothesis

• If chemotherapy works well for other cancers, then it must be effective for pancreatic cancer.

Chemotherapy, cont’d

• Chemotherapy has been used as a treatment for patients with pancreatic cancer for over a decade.

• However, it is still ineffective for those suffering with advanced stages of this disease.

Chemotherapy, cont’d• Unfortunately, there has not been very much

progress on the treatment for later stages of pancreatic cancer.

• The benefit of single-agent gemcitabine in advanced and metastatic pancreatic cancer is small.

• Adding additional chemotherapy agents to gemcitabine has not resulted in significant improvement in survival.

• The randomized trials studying the accumulation of molecular targeting agents to gemcitabine compared with gemcitabine alone have been insufficient.

New Approach

• In a recent study, a new approach was reported for pancreatic cancer patients who are in need of chemotherapy.

• Dr. Dave Melisi, an Italian Scientist, has believed for some time that that resistance to chemotherapy has been the greatest challenge in treating pancreatic cancer. So, he put that to test.

New Approach, cont’d• Melisi and his collegues began to focus

their attention on a distinctive enzyme activated by TGFbeta, called TAK-1.

• Melisi hypothesized that if the TAK-1 enzyme was inhibited, then cancer cells will be more sensitive to treatment.

• The TAK-1 enzyme makes cancer cells sensitive to treatment, and targeting TAK-1 could be a strategy to revert this resistance.

• This would improve the effectiveness of chemotherapy.

New Approach, cont’d.• Dr. Dave Melisi developed a composite

competent of inhibiting TAK-1 and tested it both on its own and in combination with other chemotherapeutic drugs.

• He also tested it in combination of gemcitabine in mice with pancreatic cancer.

• The TAK-1 inhibitor increased the sensitivity of pancreatic cells to the chemotherapeutics researched.

Effects of Inhibiting TAK-1• In comparison with using chemotherapy

alone, adding the inhibitor allowed the use of up to 70 times lower doses of the chemotherapeutic drugs to kill the same amount of cancer cells.

• Additionally, while gemcitabine therapy alone was unsuccessful in pancreatic cancer-bearing mice, adding the TAK-1 inhibitor moved it up to a 78% reduction in tumor volume and increased median average survival from 82 days to 122 days.

Research Design

Purpose: • The study proposed will determine whether or

not oxalipatin (a chemotherapeutic drug) will be effective once the TAK-1 enzyme is inhibited.

• The ideal result: Oxalipatin will be effective and support the proposed hypothesis.

Methods and Procedures:

• Since mice are used to evaluate the safety of many things, we will use mice to complete the procedure. A fixed number of mice with pancreatic cancer will be used to test the effects of TAK-1 and the chemotherapeutic drug called oxaliplatin.

Assessment:

• The outcome of this experiment will be established by analyzing the results and formulating the data.

• Once the data is collected, it will be tested against the hypothesis to determine whether or not the expectation of the experiment was correct or incorrect.

Next Steps:

• With the closing stages of the experiment, a peer reviewed article will be printed and submitted to the American Journal of Nursing and the Cancer Journal for Clinicians.

• The next steps in the project would be to expand and repeat the experiment.

Conclusion• Problem: Pancreatic cancer is a terminal

illness in need of a cute• Hypothesis: Chemotherapy could be proven

effective for pancreatic cancer• Solution: Based on the hypothesis, additional

measures will be taken

Citations• Michel Vulfovich; Caio Rocha-Lima., (2008) Novel Advances in Pancreatic

Cancer:Dietary Fructose Consumption Among US Children and Adults: Expert Review of Anticancer Therapy. The Medscape Journal of Medicine.  Vol 8(6):993-1002. 

• "Pancreatic Cancer." Pancreatic Cancer. MedicineNet, Inc., 2009. Web. 28 Sept. 2009. <http://www.medicinenet.com/pancreatic_cancer/article.htm>.

• Melisi, David. Inhibiting TAK-1 Renders Pancreatic Cancer Susceptible to Chemotherapy. 2009. Web. 1 Oct. 2009. <Inhibiting TAK-1 Renders Pancreatic Cancer Susceptible to Chemotherapy. Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News, 2009. Web. 1 Oct. 2009. .>.

• ECCO-the European Cancer Organization (2009, September 25). Pancreatic Cancer: Researchers Find Drug That Reverses

• Chemo Fails to Treat Pancreatic Cancer. Natural News. David Gutierrez, 31 Aug. 2009. Web.