Creating Profile to Identify Patients Most at Risk of Developing Pancreatic Cancer

Mayo Clinic: When people find out — usually from a diagnostic scan looking at something else — that they have a lesion in their pancreas that could morph into pancreatic cancer, they can panic. They insist on having frequent CT scans and biopsies to monitor the lesion, or they ask for surgery. Physicians also don’t know if these abnormalities are dangerous, so the patients end up in surgery having part of their pancreas removed. Often the lesion is nothing to worry about. But a team of international physicians, led by researchers at Mayo Clinic’s campus in Jacksonville, Florida, has developed a profile of the patient who would be most at risk of developing lesions that are most likely to develop into cancer. Their analysis is published online today in the journal Digestive and Liver Diseases.

Pancreatic cancer has four distinct types

Glasgow University. UK: Researchers have found that pancreatic cancer can be split into four unique types, a discovery that could be used to improve treatments for the disease, according to a study published in Nature.

Genomic sequence reveals new treatment options for pancreatic cancer

UWA. Australia: An international project assisted by researchers from The University of Western Australia has offered new hope to patients with pancreatic cancer.

Pancreatic cancer subtypes could guide future treatment

Queensland University. Australia: Scientists from Australia and the UK have completed the most comprehensive analysis yet of pancreatic cancer, in a study that could improve future treatments. The international study has revealed four subtypes of the disease.

Study unmasks pancreatic cancer's secrets

UNSW. Australia: A study that has sequenced 100 pancreatic cancer genomes for the first time provides a new understanding of the disease’s origin and may help guide future patient treatment.

Researchers Identify Gene that Pushes Normal Pancreas Cells to Change Shape, a Key Step to Cancer Development

Mayo Clinic. US: A research team led by investigators from Mayo Clinic’s campus in Jacksonville, Florida, and the University of Oslo, Norway, have identified a molecule that pushes normal pancreatic cells to transform their shape, laying the groundwork for development of pancreatic cancer — one of the most difficult tumors to treat.

Potential pancreatic cancer treatment could increase life expectancy

University North Carolina. US: Device that drives drugs into solid tumors that are poorly vascularized opens the possibility of life-saving surgeries in cancer patients. James Byrne, PhD, a medical student and member of Joseph DeSimone’s lab, led the research by constructing the device and examining its ability to deliver chemotherapeutic drugs effectively to pancreatic cancer tumors, as well as two types of breast cancer tumors.

Researchers Find Cancer Biopsies Do Not Promote Cancer Spread

Mayo Clinic US: A study of more than 2,000 patients by researchers at Mayo Clinic’s campus in Jacksonville, Florida, has dispelled the myth that cancer biopsies cause cancer to spread. In the Jan. 9 online issue of Gut, they show that patients who received a biopsy had a better outcome and longer survival than patients who did not have a biopsy.The researchers studied pancreatic cancer, but the findings likely apply to other cancers because diagnostic technique used in this study — fine needle aspiration — is commonly used across tumor types, says the study’s senior investigator and gastroenterologist Michael Wallace, M.D., M.P.H., professor of medicine.

More than 300 million people in at least 70 countries use smokeless tobacco

CDC. US: The first-ever report on the global use and public health impact of smokeless tobacco finds that more than 300 million people in at least 70 countries use these harmful products. The report, Smokeless Tobacco and Public Health: A Global Perspective, is being released today by the CDC and the National Cancer Institute at the National Conference on Smoking or Health in Mumbai, India. Thirty-two leading experts from around the world contributed to the report.The serious health effects of smokeless tobacco have been documented. As the report explains, there is sufficient evidence to conclude that smokeless tobacco causes oral cancer, esophageal cancer, and pancreatic cancer in humans.

Gemzar

Gemcitabine is used to treat pancreatic cancer, breast cancer, ovarian cancer, and lung cancer, and may be used for other cancers as well.
Gemcitabine is a member of a group of chemotherapy drugs known as anti-metabolites. It prevents cells from making DNA, which stops cell growth and causes the cells to die.

Pancreas Cancer

The most common type of cancer of the pancreas is an adenocarcinoma of the pancreas. 85% of all cancerous tumors of the pancreas are adenocarcinomas. Pancreatic adenocarcinoma is the 4th leading cause of cancer deaths in men and women in the United States. The American Cancer Society estimates that each year 29,000 American are diagnosed with adenocarcinoma of the pancreas and approximately 28,000 die of pancreatic cancer.

Abraxane

What is Abraxane?

Abraxane is a powder that is made up into a suspension for infusion (drip into a vein). It contains the active substance paclitaxel attached to a human protein called albumin.
It's used to treat metastatic breast cancer and metastatic cancer of the pancreas.

CA 19-9

CA 19-9 is a tumor marker. Tumor markers are substances that are produced by cancer or by other cells of the body in response to cancer or certain benign (noncancerous) conditions. Most tumor markers are made by normal cells as well as by cancer cells; however, they are produced at much higher levels in cancerous conditions.


CA 19-9 is the most extensively studied and validated serum biomarker for the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer in symptomatic patients. CA 19-9 serum levels can provide important information with regards to prognosis, overall survival, and response to chemotherapy as well as predict post-operative recurrence. However, there's non-specific expression of CA 19-9 in several benign and malignant diseases


CA19-9 is usually measured by a blood test.


CA 19-9 serum levels may also be elevated in in several benign and malignant diseases, pancreatic and non-pancreatic


Other conditions associated with elevated serum CA 19-9 levels include:

• ovarian cyst
• heart failure
• Hashimoto's thyroiditis
• rheumatoid arthritis
• diverticulitis
• choledocholithiasis, gallbladder cancer and cholangiocarcinoma. 
• CA 19-9 serum levels alone cannot differentiate between benign, precursor lesions and malignant pancreatic conditions such as acute and chronic pancreatitis, intraductal pancreatic mucinous neoplasms (IPMN), pancreatic intra-epithelial neoplasia (PANIN) and pancreatic cancer.

Sources: National Cancer Institute /  U K Ballehaninna; R S Chamberlain Journal of Gastrointestinal Oncology

CA 19-9

CA 19-9 is a tumor marker. Tumor markers are substances that are produced by cancer or by other cells of the body in response to cancer or certain benign (noncancerous) conditions. Most tumor markers are made by normal cells as well as by cancer cells; however, they are produced at much higher levels in cancerous conditions.


CA 19-9 is the most extensively studied and validated serum biomarker for the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer in symptomatic patients. CA 19-9 serum levels can provide important information with regards to prognosis, overall survival, and response to chemotherapy as well as predict post-operative recurrence. However, there's non-specific expression of CA 19-9 in several benign and malignant diseases


CA19-9 is usually measured by a blood test.


CA 19-9 serum levels may also be elevated in in several benign and malignant diseases, pancreatic and non-pancreatic


Other conditions associated with elevated serum CA 19-9 levels include:

• ovarian cyst
• heart failure
• hashimoto's thyroiditis
• rheumatoid arthriti
• diverticulitis
• choledocholithiasis, gallbladder cancer and cholangiocarcinoma. 
• CA 19-9 serum levels alone cannot differentiate between benign, precursor lesions and malignant pancreatic conditions such as acute and chronic pancreatitis, intraductal pancreatic mucinous neoplasms (IPMN), pancreatic intra-epithelial neoplasia (PANIN) and pancreatic cancer.

Sources: National Cancer Institute /  U K Ballehaninna; R S Chamberlain Journal of Gastrointestinal Oncology