New combination of drugs shown to effectively treat pancreatic cancer in mice
Our Head of Research, Dr Madina Kara, comments on the recent news that scientists from the Spanish National Research Centre have been able to eliminate pancreatic cancer tumours in mice using a combination of three different drugs.
Last week a research team led by Dr Mariano Barbacid from the Spanish National Research Centre announced the results of a study where they showed that a new combination of three different drugs was able to eliminate cancer in mice. More research is now required to see if this approach is effective in treating pancreatic cancer in humans.
We desperately need new and more effective treatments for pancreatic cancer. Currently, over 80% of people are diagnosed too late to receive surgery, currently the only curative treatment for pancreatic cancer.
Dr Mariano Barbacid and his team showed that by using a combination of three different drugs that each block different parts of a key biological pathway, they were able to eliminate pancreatic tumours completely in mice. These results have been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
Although we are still many years away from this treatment being available to people in the clinic, these findings pave the way for the development of new therapies that could improve the survival for pancreatic cancer.
Our Head of Research, Dr Madina Kara, said “For too long we have had very few treatment options for pancreatic cancer. It is exciting that we are now starting to see new therapies coming through, including drugs which target KRAS mutations, found in over 90% of pancreatic tumours. This study combines KRAS inhibitors to effectively treat pancreatic cancer in mice with the disease.
This is very early stage research in mice and much more work is now required to find out if this combination of treatments is effective in human pancreatic cancer. Although we are still many years away from this treatment being available to people in the clinic, these findings pave the way for the development of new therapies that could improve the survival for pancreatic cancer.
It is wonderful to see progress being made in this most challenging of cancers, giving more than hope to people diagnosed with this devastating disease in the future. We look forward to following the next stages of this research with interest.”
