Pancreatic cancer patients seeing promising results in AGAP Trial at Baylor
For many patients with inoperable pancreatic cancer, hope is fleeting. Current chemotherapy regimens and radiation therapy provide limited help against this type of aggressive cancer. The five-year survival rate for pancreatic cancer hovers around 5 percent, the lowest of all cancers.
But a new clinical trial at Baylor Charles A. Sammons Cancer Center in Dallas is giving hope to a group of pancreatic cancer patients. Thus far, all patients enrolled in the AGAP Trial at Baylor have seen their tumors shrink from an inoperable state to an operable one.
According to Carlos Becerra, M. D., the principal investigator for the study, one of the most interesting findings is that all of these patients have had negative margins on pathology post-surgery, meaning no cancer cells were found at the outer edge of the tissue that was removed. The research team will continue to measure disease-free survival in these patients.
To shrink pancreatic tumors to an operable state, chemotherapy treatments have to hit their target. But this is difficult with pancreatic tumors because they’ re often blocked by dense connective tissue exacerbated by inflammation from the cancer.
Inflammation is also problematic for some types of breast cancer. A different team of researchers at Baylor have been studying how an anti-inflammatory drug called anakinra can help breast cancer patients. Based on positive outcomes of that study, researchers leading the AGAP Trial are adding anakinra to a three-drug chemotherapy combination( nab-paclitaxel, gemcitabine and cisplatin) to reduce inflammation and shrink pancreatic tumors. As the inflammation goes down, patients are reporting that they feel better.
There’ s been so much enthusiasm around the trial that, after launching in January 2016, researchers reached their enrollment goal of 16 patients by the year’ s end. They also recently received approval to increase the number of participating patients to 20.
The increase will enhance the study’ s statistical power. This will, in turn, provide robust data that will improve chances of securing additional funding for a larger study after this initial trial is complete.
“ This trial has invigorated the pancreas team here at Baylor,” said Scott Celinski, M. D., another principal investigator for this study.“ We have been able to encourage physicians to recommend patients for these clinical trials. We know that the needle won’ t move without participation. The enthusiasm is
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Dr. Carlos Becerra
Dr. Scott Celinski
“ This trial has invigorated the pancreas team here at Baylor.”
— Dr. Scott Celinski