Research Team Reports Breakthrough in Pancreatic Cancer Treatment
upstart writes:
A Spanish research team has claimed to have developed a treatment that completely eliminates the most aggressive form of pancreatic cancer in laboratory mice, raising fresh hopes against one of the deadliest cancers. Pancreatic cancer is often diagnosed late and is completely resistant to most existing treatments in later stages.
So, when Dr Mariano Barbacid claimed to have discovered a potential "cure," it sent ripples of hope across the global medical community and sparked intense scientific debate. The claim, made by the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre, working on an experimental therapy targeting the tumour cells, suggests that their approach could stop cancer growth and, in some cases, completely eliminate malignant cells in laboratory and early animal studies.
The CNIO therapy is an amalgamation of three drugs that are designed to shut down multiple tumour survival mechanisms simultaneously. According to the researchers, this strategy prevents cancer cells from rewiring themselves, a common cause of treatment failure. Dr Barbacid has previously argued that pancreatic cancer cannot be defeated with a single-drug strategy.
Given pancreatic cancer's grim statistics - five-year survival rates hovering around 10 per cent - the announcement has quickly drawn global attention.
[...] Preliminary reports say Dr Barbacid and his research team have developed a therapy that is able to disrupt the protective tumour environment, along with triggering cancer cells' death. The approach reportedly combines molecular targeting with immune system activation, which makes the tumours extremely vulnerable to treatment.
In the laboratory, according to the researchers, the therapy has been able to stop tumour progression and, in some models, even eradicate cancer cells entirely. These findings are yet to be validated in humans and could represent a major breakthrough.
However, the work is still in early stages, as many of the results so far come from preclinical studies, not large-scale human trials.
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