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Hello David-
My mother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer stage 4 on – – . I would like to know if it treatable? I hope and pray she beats it. Tiffany
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“Surgery represents the only potential curative treatment option for patients diagnosed with pancreatic adenocarcinoma. Despite aggressive surgical management for patients deemed to be resectable, rates of local recurrence and/or distant metastases remain high, resulting in poor long-term outcomes…
In an effort to reduce recurrence rates and improve survival for patients having undergone resection, adjuvant therapies (ATs) including chemotherapy and chemoradiation therapy (CRT) have been explored. While adjuvant chemotherapy has been shown to consistently improve outcomes, the data regarding adjuvant radiation therapy (RT) is mixed…”
“A number of preclinical studies have demonstrated anticancer effects for curcumin in various types of tumors, including pancreatic cancer. Curcumin has anticancer effects both alone and in combination with other anticancer drugs (e.g., gemcitabine, 5-fluorouracil, and oxaliplatin), and it has been shown to modulate a variety of molecular targets in preclinical models, with more than 30 molecular targets identified to date.
Of these various molecules, NF-κB is thought to be one of the primary targets of curcumin activity. Based on these promising preclinical results, several research groups, including our own, have progressed to testing the anticancer effects of curcumin in clinical trials; however, the poor bioavailability of this agent has been the major challenge for its clinical application. Despite the ingestion of gram-level doses of curcumin, plasma curcumin levels remain at low (ng/mL) levels in patients, which is insufficient to yield the anticancer benefits of curcumin.
This problem has been solved by the development of highly bioavailable forms of curcumin (THERACURMIN®), and higher plasma curcumin levels can now be achieved without increased toxicity in patients with pancreatic cancer. In this article, we review possible therapeutic applications of curcumin in patients with pancreatic cancer.”
“Pancreatic cancer has a dismal prognosis with an overall survival outcome of just 5% at five years. However, paralleling our improved understanding of the biology of pancreatic cancer, treatment paradigms have also continued to evolve with newer advances in
RT dose, modality, fraction size, and sequencing are being evaluated actively, and the interplay between RT and immune effects has opened up newer avenues of research.
In this review, we will emphasize recent advances in RT for pancreatic cancer, focusing on preoperative chemoradiation, RT dose escalation, sparing of the spleen to reduce lymphopenia, and combination of RT with immunotherapy.