The Cure to Pancreatic Cancer Found? – Social Media Erupts

One of the biggest plagues to humanity has been cancer, the disease that has killed thousands. Pancreatic cancer has been regarded as one of the most intractable and lethal forms of the disease. With a five-year survival rate lingering in the single digits and most diagnoses arriving once the cancer has already spread, any suggestion of a cure sets off a lot of excitement and, at times, misinformation.

Recently, social media platforms lit up with claims that scientists have finally discovered the cure to pancreatic cancer after a Spanish research team reported dramatic results in laboratory mice. While the news has given hope to many, it is essential to separate the enthusiasm from the cold realities of scientific research and clinical practice.

Breakthroughs in animal models have many times preceded huge advances in human medicine, but there is still a considerable journey from a promising labarotory result to a safe and effective human cure. So, the new findings give a big step forward in the fight against pancreatic cancer, but it might not be an immediate cure for patients around the world.

Spanish Team’s Triple Therapy Shows Promising Results in Mice

What has made worldwide news is the research led by Dr Mariano Barbacid and his team at the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO) in Madrid. In a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers tested a combination of three drugs on mice engineered to develop pancreatic tumours.

The plan was to block multiple pathways that the cancer cells use to grow and survive. Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, the most common form of the disease, is driven forward in most cases by a mutated gene known as KRAS.

Traditional therapies have struggled because tumour cells can adapt, switching to alternative survival routes when one pathway is blocked. The innovative approach combined an experimental KRAS inhibitor, a drug approved for certain lung cancers that targets EGFR and HER2 pathways, and a protein-degrading compound that disables the STAT3 survival mechanism.

So, when administered together, the triple therapy produced shocking results. Tumours in the treated mice shrank completely and did not grow back for more than 200 days after treatment ended. Importantly, the animals tolerated the therapy well and did not show serious side effects, suggesting that the approach may be safe enough to consider in human trials.

The same drug combination also eliminated tumours grown from human pancreatic cancer cells in laboratory conditions. This outcome is indeed unbelievable as it opens the door for designing new combination therapies that could improve survival rates for patients with pancreatic cancer.

The Spanish Embassy in the United Kingdom emphasised the importance of the research on social media, putting forward the potential for this discovery to make a real difference in the fight against a disease that kills thousands of people each year.

However, the CNNIO team and other experts are careful to stress that these results are still at the pre-clinical stage. To date, there have been no clinical trials in humans, and scientists emphasise that much work remains before it can be confirmed whether the therapy will be effective and safe in patients.

Could This Mean All Cancers Can Be Cured?

The incredible reduction of tumours in mice has led many people online to ask whether this is a cure not only for pancreatic cancer but for all cancers.

It is important to temper such expectations with an understanding of how cancer research and drug development work. Cancers are not a single disease; they vary widely in their genetic makeup, behaviour, and response to treatment.

Moreover, success in mice does not automatically translate into success in humans. Many treatments that appear highly effective in animal models fail to produce the same results in clinical trials, due to differences in physiology, tumour complexity, and how drugs are metabolised.

Furthermore, in the case of the triple therapy tested by the CNIO team, scientists have been clear that human trials are not yet underway.

Additionally, regulatory approval will likely require extensive testing to ensure the treatment’s safety and efficacy in humans. It is also worth pointing out that pancreatic cancer is only one of hundreds of cancer types. While learning how to block multiple critical survival pathways simultaneously gives a hopeful strategy, each cancer type has its own set of molecular drivers and resistance mechanisms.

Originally published on IBTimes UK