In a new study, researchers have discovered a potential new treatment for an aggressive form of pancreatic cancer called pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC).
This finding may help increase the survival of patients resistant to cancer chemotherapeutic drugs.
The research was conducted by a team from Curtin University in Australia.
PDAC is a very aggressive disease, and people diagnosed only have a five-year survival rate. This makes it the fourth most common cancer-related cause of death in the western world.
There are currently limited treatments available for people diagnosed with this aggressive type of pancreatic cancer.
In the study, the team found a protein in human PDAC cancer cells that are critical for tumor growth in mice.
The researchers discovered that treatment with a new version of an anti-inflammatory drug called sulindac. They found it could block cancer progression of pancreatic cancer cells.
The team says blocking cancer progression pathways with drug sulindac could strongly decrease the spread of PDAC and slowed tumor growth in the body.
The new findings have potential implications for future human clinical studies because the protein is also known to cause resistance to currently available cancer chemotherapeutic drugs.
The team says over-expression of tumor-promoting proteins found in cancers like PDAC is one of the main reasons why chemotherapeutic drugs are ineffective for the treatment of pancreatic cancer.
Targeting this protein could be very beneficial in treating patients who have failed standard chemotherapy for PDAC.
Further work needs to determine whether a possible drug combination, which includes the new version of sulindac, may provide positive results in human clinical trials.
If successful, this new treatment may help increase survival for patients with pancreatic cancer.
The lead author of the study is Professor Marco Falasca.
The study is published in the Journal of Experimental and Clinical Cancer Research.
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