Daily pill doubles survival time for pancreatic cancer patients
A pill has been found to almost double the survival time for advanced pancreatic cancer patients, with experts describing the trial as a game changer.
The drug, called daraxonrasib, appears to be a breakthrough in managing a disease that has the highest mortality rate of all major cancers.
It helps prevent the spread of cancer by locking onto and shutting off the mutated KRAS gene, which is in more than 90% of pancreatic tumours and spurs cancer growth.
The trial, which included 500 patients in North America, Europe, and Asia, found the average survival time for patients on chemotherapy was 6.6 months, compared with 13.2 months for patients on daraxonrasib. It also caused fewer side-effects, BBC reports.
“These results are landscape-changing for metastatic pancreatic cancer patients with a KRAS mutation,” said Rachna Shroff, chief of the division of haematology/oncology at the University of Arizona Cancer Centre.
Pancreatic cancer is often spotted late and is notoriously difficult to treat. More than half of people with pancreatic cancer die within three months of diagnosis.
There are 11,500 diagnoses of the disease in Britain each year and around 10,200 deaths, according to Cancer Research UK. Actor Alan Rickman died of the disease in 2016, five months after diagnosis.
Symptoms can include jaundice, itchy skin, darker pee, paler poo, unexplained weight loss, tiredness and high temperature.
