(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Researchers may have found a new weapon to wield in the fight against one of the deadliest forms of cancer.

A therapy combining the agents tigatuzumab and gemcitabine demonstrated the ability to cause remission of pancreatic cancer tumors in a recent study. The combined therapies reduced the number of pancreatic cancer stem cells, caused tumor remission, and significantly increased time-to-tumor progression in 50 percent of mice treated with the drugs.

The drug tigatuzumab targets a receptor called DR-5 that is enriched in cancer stem cells, and gemcitabine reduces tumor size. Treatment with gemcitabine alone was shown to reduce tumor size but leave behind tumor cells that were full of cancer stem cells. The tigatuzumab worked by attacking those stem cells.

"Clinically, this discovery could transform the way in which pancreatic cancer is treated and contribute towards making pancreatic cancer a more manageable disease," Rajesh Kumar N.V., Ph.D., a faculty member at the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Md., was quoted as saying.

Most pancreatic cancer patients die within the first year of diagnosis since few effective treatments exist for the disease once it sets in.

Source: Presented at the American Association for Cancer Research 100th Annual Meeting, 2009