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45 Y old husband got diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer
Pancreatic Cancer | Last Active: May 23 12:53pm | Replies (21)Comment receiving replies
Wow, @stageivsurvivor we are so lucky to have you as a 10 yr survivor with all of the scientific information you provide us. I’ve been reading and sometimes commenting on this board on a nearly daily basis since my cancer metastasized in late 2023. I don’t know how many years it took scientists to come up with a potential cure for those with the BRCA or PALB mutations, but it does give hope that further research could result in a cure for the rest of us. Meanwhile we will continue using all of the life lines for extensions that we are currently given until a cure for us is discovered. Please keep up the good work for your own health and for keeping us informed.
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June 18 will mark 13 years survival from when I got my diagnosis. The BRCA1 gene was discovered in 1994 and BRCA2 in 1995. Shortly after researchers be a developing PARP inhibitors. long before the BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations were implicated in causing breast cancer-later implicating them also in male breast, prostate, ovarian and pancreatic cancers. The development of the first PARP inhibitor began in 1971. Researchers then began collaborations on using this PARP inhibitor on the BRCA mutations discovered in the mid ‘90’s.
There were clinical trials with Olaparib (AstraZeneca of the UK) run by the Institute for Cancer Research in the UK. This was somewhere around 2005-2006 on breast and ovarian. Pancreatic came after that. The first clinical trial in the US I am aware of was done by my oncologist Susan Domchek of the Abramson Cancer Center at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania/PennMedicine in 2013. It was a pilot study of two BRCA2 Pancretic cancer patients being administered Olaparib to determine feasibility a PARPi could be efficacious. The data showed it was effective and the results presented at the ASCO 2014 annual meeting. I found the newly published abstract just put up on the ASCO site making inference of a possible phase II study. I contacted PennMedicine before the trial was publicly announced and how I became the first U.S. patient to enroll. My first oncologist wanted me to remain on Full-dose Folfirinox three more months before entering the trial to gain maximum benefit. I then entered the trial and now the longest patient in the world still on it since October 2014.
AstraZeneca receives approval for Olaparib to treat BRCA1/BRCA2 mutated patients on 12/27/2019. The drug I am on is Rubraca that received approval for ovarian and prostate cancers. With the market very small for pancreatic cancer, the developer of Rubraca determined they could not obtain a ROI in trying to seek FDA approval. I receive it under permission of the FDA and the support of the current owner holding the development and marketing rights of the drug.