Big step forward in cancer treatments?

It sounds like good news for people with pancreatic cancer in the future, once they're able to moderate the side-effects more.

It's doesn't sound like it's a cure, but rather long-term disease management, like we already have for advanced prostate cancer. I hope other deadly cancers like ovarian cancer can catch up with us the same way.

Obviously, curing cancers would be ideal, but making more cancers into long-term chronic diseases that can be managed into natural old age (just like diabetes, HIV, or Parkinson's) would be a huge win.

@northoftheborder You are absolutely right. I get excited about anything that is 100% success. That's almost never the case.

Hope is a good thing (sometimes all that we have). Though those tests are only in mouse models.

However, pancreatic cancer and prostate cancer are two totally different animals. Pancreatic cancer has an 80% mortality rate; prostate cancer less than 12%.

I was diagnosed with prostrate cancer in 2012, treated in 2021, and am doing fine. My older brother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in early August 2024, and died in late October 2024. (It was a horrible, yet fairly quick death.)

We should watch for human trials for that study.

@brianjarvis Yup, compared to pancreatic cancer, this is not even close. We have pretty good screening/testing for PCa and that’s where a lot of our success at treating it arises.
Unfortunately, cancer of the pancreas is not detectable until symptoms arise and by then it’s usually too late. I guess they should come up with a PSA-like test for it, something more specific than the genetic catch all tests they have today. Best,
Phil

Early diagnosis of pancreatic cancer with current standard of care (SOC) methods creates a 50% five year survival benefit, Oregon Health Services... (OHSU) has discovered a blood biomarker for likely even early detection of Pancreatic cancer. It may cost as little as $0.29 when added to an annual blood panel. It is being tested in a general human population to confirm its validity. There is also a promising pancreatic preventive and therapeutic vaccine in the works too.

Prostate cancer: I believe Johns Hopkins has a therapeutic vaccine that is injected into the gland 2 or 3 times. It is said to reduce metastasis in those at risk by 30-40%

@heavyphil Actually, they do have a PSA-like test for pancreatic cancer - it’s called a CA19-9 blood test. The CA 19-9 test measures the amount of a protein called CA 19-9 (cancer antigen 19-9) in a sample of blood. CA 19-9 is a type of tumor marker. But, just as with PSA blood tests - elevated CA19-9 levels could be caused by many other things - so they don’t routinely offer it.
> https://medlineplus.gov/lab-tests/ca-19-9-blood-test-pancreatic-cancer/

(I found out about it when my brother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Normal levels are < 37 u/mL; his was 1,864 u/mL. I asked the doctor about that; he said that’s one marker for pancreatic cancer, and they also use it as a follow-up to gauge how treatments are going, and if there is a recurrence. I’m thinking…..that’s just like PSA testing.)
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BTW, they also have a PSA-like test for ovarian cancer - it’s called the CA-125 blood test. Similarly, it measures levels of the CA 125 protein, primarily used to help diagnose, monitor treatment, or check for recurrence in ovarian cancer. (Comparable to how a PSA test measures levels of the PSA protein, primarily used to “help diagnose, monitor treatment, or check for recurrence” in prostate cancer.)
> https://medlineplus.gov/lab-tests/ca-125-blood-test-ovarian-cancer/

But, just like with a PSA test where many things can cause PSA to rise, many things can cause a CA125 to rise so, the test isn’t offered as a standard test.

If women asked for the CA125 test at about 45y/o (just as PSA tests are recommended for men starting at about 45y/o), there might be earlier detection of that cancer as well.

Amazing how much there is out there that we simply don’t hear about!

@thmssllvn Where can I read the research on this? I have pancreatic cancer. Thank you.

"Early diagnosis of pancreatic cancer with current standard of care (SOC) methods creates a 50% five year survival benefit, Oregon Health Services... (OHSU) has discovered a blood biomarker for likely even early detection of Pancreatic cancer. It may cost as little as $0.29 when added to an annual blood panel. It is being tested in a general human population to confirm its validity."

@tomrennie
https://news.ohsu.edu/2025/02/12/new-blood-test-identifies-hard-to-detect-pancreatic-cancer-with-85-accuracy

@smoore4 Thank you. I am aware of this promising blood test. I am not aware of anything that "creates a 50% five year survival benefit" for pancreatic cancer patients. That is what I really want to read about. Thanks again.