Scientists find promising drug for pancreatic, liver cancer

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Gastrointestinal cancers (e.g., pancreatic cancer, liver cancer, colon cancer) are some of the most commonly diagnosed cancers, and they continue to be associated with poor survival outcomes.

In a new study from Mayo Clinic Cancer Center, researchers found the drug adagrasib specifically targets the KRASG12C gene mutation that is common in gastrointestinal cancers and inhibits gastrointestinal function.

They found promising clinical effects in patients with gastrointestinal cancers that harbor KRAS G12C mutations, including pancreatic cancer, biliary tract cancer and other upper gastrointestinal cancers.

The team says the prognosis for patients whose cancer harbors a KRAS gene mutation is particularly poor, and researchers’ attempts to target KRAS G12C, which represents less than 5% of all KRAS mutations in this group of cancers, have failed until only recently.

The new finding showed that adagrasib not only inhibits cancers with a KRASG12C mutation effectively, but also showed promising clinical activity in patients with gastrointestinal cancers.

These results were very impressive in treating a group of diseases that tend to have a particularly poor outcome

Researchers were pleasantly surprised by these findings, given that their previous research with another similar drug was disappointing in this particular group of patients.

Research with adagrasib is ongoing. If these trends continue, the drug may eventually prove to be a new option for patients with pancreatic, biliary tract and other gastrointestinal cancers.

If you care about liver health, please read studies about which drug can harm your liver most, and common diabetes drug could help reverse liver inflammation.

For more information about liver health, please see recent studies about 8 things you need to know about liver disease hepatitis C, and results showing this drug combo may reduce drug resistance in liver cancer.

The study was presented the American Society of Clinic Oncology’s Genitourinary Cancers Symposium and was conducted by Tanios Bekaii-Saab et al.

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