Posted on 08/01/2023 9:14:09 PM PDT by ConservativeMind
Pancreatic cancer is one of the most difficult cancers to treat, being highly resistant to chemotherapy.
However, there are no effective alternative therapies to chemotherapy, so chemo remains the best available treatment.
Researchers report that a hyperglycemic state—that is, one where the blood glucose level is raised—made pancreatic cancer more sensitive to chemotherapy in a mouse model. (Pancreatic cancer is more formally known as Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma and shortened as PDAC). Results were replicated in cell culture and a cohort of patients with metastatic PDAC.
These findings present a potentially new method of making chemotherapy more effective against pancreatic cancer, according to Jordan Winter, MD.
"Sensitization of tumors to chemotherapy using forced hyperglycemia offers a completely novel therapeutic strategy. Our findings reveal an approach that would have relatively low-cost and could be easily tested in patients with pancreatic cancer," said Dr. Winter. Over the past three decades, pancreatic cancer researchers have yet to find new effective targeted therapies.
The researchers examined the impact of glycemic status on another group of patients treated for metastatic pancreatic cancer.
About 33% of the patients had elevated glucose levels (at least one glucose reading above 200 mg/dL). There were no appreciated demographic differences between normal (99 mg/dL or lower) and high glucose patients. A greater proportion of patients in the high glucose group had a documented diagnosis of diabetes.
The median overall survival among all patients who completed at least two cycles of chemotherapy was approximately 9.8 months in all the patients, on par with historical clinical trial data. Further analysis showed, however, that patients in the high glucose level group had a nearly 40% lower risk of dying, despite a higher level of a cancer antigen (CA19-9, which is a measure of disease burden), as compared to patients in the normal glucose group.
(Excerpt) Read more at medicalxpress.com ...
This is a counterintuitive finding to arrive at. It’s almost like saying smoking can help cure lung cancer, under chemo.
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Not sure - when the do a PET scan to look for tumors, they inject some radioactive sugar because the sugar “hunts out and infuses” the cancerous areas - perhaps higher glucose levels help the chemo infuse the cancer cells better.
The chemo is horrible. It compounds—the first round is the easiest.
When my wife was going through it, the answer was: Calories. The key was to get as many calories as possible into her. They need the energy to make it through the rough days.
It’s a long haul, but people DO make it through. And…the treatments change and improve all the time.
Good luck to your friend.
Thanks. We've been friends since junior high days sitting in the trumpet section of the band. Today, he is a very good clinical psychologist. It's awful to see all of that great effort derailed with pancreatic cancer. We both agreed that he needs to set sights on the 50th high school class reunion next year. Have a stretch goal to maintain hope.
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