New Drug Extends Survival for Pancreatic Cancer Patients
Reported November 4, 2005
(Ivanhoe Newswire) — The American Cancer society estimates 32,180 Americans will be diagnosed with pancreatic cancer this year. As the fourth leading cause of cancer death only 23 percent of the patients diagnosed with it will be alive one year later. A new treatment, however, gives survival hope to pancreatic cancer patients.
According to a recent study led by David Cunningham, M.D., from the Royal Marsden Hospital in London, adding the oral chemotherapy pill Xeloda (capecitabine) to standard chemotherapy extends patient survival. The study consisted of 533 previously untreated patients with locally advanced or metastatic pancreatic cancer. Some of the patients were given the combination treatment, while the control group was treated with only chemotherapy. Then researchers compared the survival of patients on a combination of gemcitabine (chemotherapy) and Xeloda with the survival of patients on only gemcitabine.
The patients receiving the combination therapy lived significantly longer than those on the standard therapy alone. “Some of my patients with advanced, inoperable pancreatic cancer are seeing improvement in their tumor size by adding Xeloda to their traditional chemotherapy,” Dr. Cunningham says. “This is the first time adding another drug to gemcitabine has improved the outcome for patients with inoperable pancreatic cancer.”
Data in the study shows patients on the combination treatment had a one in four chance of survival compared to a one in five survival rate of those taking the chemotherapy alone. “These data show there are new possibilities for pancreatic cancer patients who, in general, have a short life expectancy once diagnosed,” says Julie Fleshman, J.D., M.B.A., President & CEO of Pancreatic Caner Action Network. She also says because pancreatic cancer is one of the most aggressive forms of cancer, it is even more critical to discover and offer these patients more treatment options.
SOURCE: European Cancer Conference in Paris, Oct. 30 – Nov. 3, 2005
