PRECISION Panc Project aims to develop the individualized and personalized treatment for pancreatic cancer patients in order to improve the options, outcomes and low survival rate of the disease. The said project is supported by £10 million investment from Cancer Research UK.
The study is pioneered by Professor Andrew Biankin from the University of Glasgow together with some researchers across the UK. According to Science Daily, the research team aims to speed up the recruitment and enrollment of pancreatic cancer patients in the clinical trials.
The three trials will recruit a total of 658 patients from a number of centers across the UK. The goal of the PRECISION Panc Project is to transform the way of treating pancreatic cancer by matching the right treatment to the right patient, as stated by Biankin. Two out of the three clinical trials is supported by Cancer Research UK including the preclinical work, assay development, biomarker work and the huge amount of molecular sequencing.
The researchers are geared towards the use of the molecular profile of each pancreatic cancer in order to identify the treatment that will benefit both physician and patients. The first wave of the research will establish the most effective and best way to collect patient's tissue samples to be analyzed and diagnosed at the University of Glasgow.
According to WebMD, pancreatic cancer is aggressive with few symptoms that may include abdominal pain, weight loss, diarrhea, and jaundice. The risk factors for the disease include; smoking, chronic pancreatitis, hereditary or genetic factors, and long standing diabetes.
The American Cancer Society reported that about 23 percent of patients suffering from exocrine pancreas cancer are living one year after diagnosis while only about 4 percent are still living five years after being diagnosed. Various treatments exist such as surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy. Chemotherapy utilizes the use of drugs to treat cancer while radiation therapy uses X-rays or other kinds of radiation to kill tumor cells. Surgery, on the other hand, can be used to remove a tumor and suppress the symptoms of pancreatic cancer.
