Pancreatic Cancer: It Doesn't Have to Be a Death Sentence
If you have cancer, it is as unique as your fingerprint. Your treatment should be too.
Pancreatic cancer is currently the 4th leading cause of cancer death in women and the 5th in men. It is aggressive, and standard treatments often fail because they treat the disease name, not the individual patient.
If you have been told "there is nothing more we can do," or if you are looking for the best possible start to your treatment, you have come to the right place.
At the Nagourney Cancer Institute, we do not guess which drugs might work for you based on statistics from other people. We test your cancer cells directly.
Using our proprietary Explant Analysis (Functional Profiling), we take a sample of your tumor and expose it to various drugs and drug combinations in the laboratory before you take them. We measure exactly which drugs kill your cancer cells and which ones don't.
Double the Response Rate
Dr. Robert Nagourney has spent decades proving that biology trumps statistics.
A 2023 meta-analysis presented at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) specifically examined the effectiveness of this Explant Analysis. The results were life-changing for patients:
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2.04-fold higher response rate for patients whose treatment was guided by our testing.
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1.44-fold higher one-year survival rate.
This means that patients who used functional profiling were twice as likely to respond to treatment compared to those who received standard care.
Real Hope for Stage 4 Patients
Even with advanced Stage 4 pancreatic cancer, durable remissions are possible. We have seen patients who were given months to live go on to celebrate birthdays, anniversaries, and milestones years later because they received the right drug for their specific biology.
We Don't Guess. We Test.
Time is the most valuable resource you have. Do not waste it on treatments that won't work.
Contact us today to find out how to arrange for your tissue sample to be sent to our laboratory.
Challenges
with
Treatment
Cancers arising in the pancreas may not exhibit any noticeable symptoms in the early stage. Because of this, pancreatic cancer is typically diagnosed at a late stage making treatment difficult and prognosis poor.
Surgery is the most effective way to manage pancreatic cancers if the disease remains confined to the pancreas (Stage I). If the disease has progressed, then radiation or combinations of radiation plus chemotherapy are typically employed.
Unfortunately, pancreatic cancers are often advanced when first diagnosed and the only option left is chemotherapy. Despite years of study, there are no curative therapies for metastatic pancreatic cancer.
Nonetheless, some patients have dramatic and durable benefit from chemotherapy.
Probable Causes
Oncogenes (genes that are mutated or expressed) such as K-RAS, p16, or p53 BRCA mutations (found in patients with family history of breast and ovarian cancer).
Mismatch repair deficiencies associated with Lynch syndrome
Life style and dietary associations including cigarette smoking, alcohol consumption, processed food intake and obesity
Treatment
options
Surgical Procedures
While radical surgery is potentially curative, only a minority of patients are candidates. Patients with advanced, metastatic pancreatic cancer spread to the liver or the abdominal cavity will require systemic therapy.
Most common chemotherapy drugs:
5-FU/leucovorin
Platins (Cisplatin or Oxaliplatin)
Taxanes (Taxol, Docetaxel, Abraxand)
Irinotecan
Gemcitabine
Capecitabine (oral formulation of 5FU)
Most common chemotherapy combinations:
FOLFIRINOX (oxaliplatin & irinotecan & 5-fluorouracil (5-FU)/leucovorin)
Gemcitabine & Nab-Paclitaxel (Abraxane)
Gemcitabine & Erlotinib
Gemcitabine & Cisplatin
GTX (gemcitabine & docetaxel & capecitabine)
5FU/leucovorin & Capecitabine
5FU/leucovorin & Oxalilatin
Targeted Therapies Available:
Erlotinib (Tarceva)
What Our Research Has Shown
We find that advanced metastatic pancreatic cancer patients fall into several broad categories:
1) The truly drug sensitive patients who will respond to numerous treatments and can benefit from the least toxic drug combinations.
2) A small minority of patients who are sensitive to "targeted agents" like Erlotinib (Tarceva)
3) A large group of patients have distinct sensitivity to one of the three standard drug regimens used in this disease: Platinum-based (GemOx, Cisplatin & Gemcitabine), Taxane-based (GTX, Abraxane/Gemcitabine), or Irinotecan-based (FOLFIRINOX, FOLFIRI)
4) A final group of patients are resistant to standard chemotherapeutics and should be considered for experimental therapies as early as possible.
Without testing, how do you know which group you may be in?