Pancreatic Cancer Treatment

Pancreatic cancer is one of the most aggressive and lethal human cancers, with more than 200, 000 deaths worldwide every year. Despite recent efforts, conventional treatment approaches, such as surgery, classic chemotherapy, radiotherapy, biologic therapy and palliative care have only slightly improved patient outcomes. Among the conventional chemotherapies the combination of abraxane (nab-paclitaxel) with gemcitabine and FOLFIRINOX (5-FU/leucovorin, irinotecan, and oxaliplatin) with gemcitabine in metastatic pancreatic cancer patients are promising. Among the targeted therapies the combination of gemcitabine, erlotinib and capecitabine are likely to form the base for future treatment. Under biologic or immunotherapy KRAS-targeting vaccines, telomerase-targeting vaccine (GV1001), gastrin-based vaccine, dendritic cell (DC)-based vaccine alone or combined with lymphokineactivated killer (LAK) cells and allogeneic GM-CSF-secreting vaccine (GVAX) are well tolerated by patients and could represent a new therapeutic option for pancreatic cancer. Moreover a novel strategy for using mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) as means of delivering anticancer genes to the site of pancreas is also encouraging. Current and future clinical trials using natural compounds such as vitamin E compound delta-tocotrienol and curcumin in combination with standard chemotherapy are ongoing to discover more effective ways of treating advanced pancreatic cancer. Pancreatic Cancer Treatment