Monterey, CA New Hope For Those With Pancreatic Cancer

A person holding hands with another person in bed.


We have a lot of good oncologists on the Monterey Peninsula but one of the cancers that is extremely difficult to treat is pancreatic.  It has a five-year survival rate of only 10%.  However, researchers are working on a new drug that shows promise.  USA Today profiled Barbara Brigham, who was almost resigned to dying after a 2020 pancreatic cancer diagnosis.  Her doctor encouraged her to join a clinical trial which was testing a new way to stimulate the immune system against cancer, and it worked!  She is now living free of cancer.  A gene called KRAS, mutated in many pancreatic tumors, could soon be “druggable,†says Providence Foundation oncologist Eric Tran.  And there are other drugs going through the clinical trial stages which look very promising.

FDA Rejects Two Cancer Drugs Developed In China

A doctor and patient looking at a book


The Food & Drug Administration has denied approval of two proposed new cancer drugs which were developed in China.  The FDA issued a letter to Hong Kong-based Hutchmed Ltd. denying permission to market the drug ufatinib, which is approved in the Chinese market to treat pancreatic and neuroendocrine tumors.  It also notified China-based Shanghai Junshi Biosciences Co. and its U.S.-based partner Coherus BioSciences Inc. that it denied its application to sell the drug toripalimab, which treats nasopharyngeal cancer.  The FDA asked the companies to change their quality-related processes at which time the FDA will reexamine the applications.  However, the FDA did note that two clinical trials Hutchmed conducted in China for ufatinib didn’t support approval so that company may have to go back to the drawing board on clinical trials as well.  FDA officials have commented publicly recently that they were not happy with the quality of drug studies conducted in China and that it was unclear whether the results would be applicable to U.S. patients.

 

50 Year Anniversary Of War On Cancer

A close up of some blue and yellow cells


It was fifty years ago when President Richard Nixon declared a war against cancer when he signed the National Cancer Act while simultaneously increasing funding for cancer research.  At the time, President Nixon said if we could put a man on the moon in eight years, we should be able to do the same with curing cancer.  Unfortunately, it’s easier said than done.  About 600K Americans still die from cancer each year and we are a long ways from finding an outright cure.  However, that’s not to say that progress hasn’t been made.  Over the past 50 years, death rates dropped by 70% for childhood cancers, 56% for colorectal cancer and 39% for female breast cancer, according to the American Cancer Society.  Sadly, painful cancers like pancreatic cancer and glioblastoma—a horrible kind of brain cancer—remain nearly as deadly as they were during Nixon’s rein.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2021/12/23/cancer-war-screening-genetics/6430979001/?gnt-cfr=1