[ CancerWeb Home
| Comments
| CancerWeb Report Index ]
The CancerWeb Report, What's New In Cancer
Pancreatic Cancer: December 1995
Last modified on:
Tuesday, April 20, 1999 13:03:10
Copyright © 1994-2008, Information Ventures, Inc.
Monoclonal antibody PAM4 -
The "stealthy" nature of pancreatic cancer makes it more
essential even than for other tumors to have some means of early
diagnosis - this we have stressed before. Two reports in the
December 1, 1995, supplement to Cancer Research describe studies
with a new monoclonal antibody, PAM4, specifically targeted to
pancreatic cancer. Researchers from the Garden State Cancer
Center in Newark, New Jersey, and the University of Genoa, Italy,
performed work in both mice implanted with human tumors and in
human patients. When labeled with radioactive iodine, the
antibody localized to the tumors in the mice, and with enough
radioactivity to kill cells, showed a very significant antitumor
effect. Given to five patients, the labeled antibody could be
imaged in the pancreatic cancer of the four who were proved to
have the disease. Imaging of both primary and metastatic disease
was achieved in 72-96 hours (except for peritoneal metastases
which were detected at 24-48 hours), while radioactivity in the
spleen and liver, which would interfere with pancreatic
visualization, was very low.
Radiotherapy and 5-Fu/leucovorin - A joint effort from the University of Kentucky in Lexington, and
Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia on treatment of
pancreatic cancer was reported in the November, 1995 issue of the
Journal of Clinical Oncology. They used intraoperative
radiotherapy in which radiation is delivered to the opened
abdomen, with simultaneous intravenous feeding, followed by
chemotherapy with 5-Fu/leucovorin, and then external beam
radiation and maintenance chemotherapy. Survival was 55% at 1
and 22% at 2 years, not impressive, but better than three other
major studies in this disease which is so rapidly fatal after
diagnosis.
Copyright (c) 1994-2008, Information Ventures, Inc.
Mail us at: Customer-Service@infoventures.com
http://infoventures.com