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European researchers conduct the first controlled test of a technology promising to destroy previously unrealized pancreatic tumors by using concentrated heat to destroy cancer defenses.
The Phase 3 clinical trial (that is, a medical approach may already be considered appropriate for wider use) aims to eliminate so-called locally advanced pancreatic tumors, such that is, those in which the disease already affects both the pancreas and surrounding organs, such as the intestine, in addition
About 40% of patients with pancreatic cancer already had this form of the disease at the time of diagnosis. Due to the current inability to remove the tumor, the average life expectancy of these patients is eight months.
Coordinated by researchers from the University Medical Center Utrecht in the Netherlands, the clinical trial has already recruited 98 patients in Europe. and it is expected to reach a total of 228 participants by the end of 2019. The results on the degree of success of the approach should be known in the middle of 2021.
Coordinators must destroy the tumor without high risks for the patient. of the study opted for radiofrequency ablation. In this method, electrodes placed strategically along the tumor administer an alternating electric current (ie, periodically changing direction) on the tumor tissues. Since there are ions (electrically charged particles), the alternating current makes them move quickly from one side to the other, which causes frictional heat. This heat is so intense that the tumor is destroyed.
It takes a lot of precision and care to position the electrodes, as well as a cooling system concomitant with neighboring organs, able to protect them from heat damage. . This is done by administering fluids at a temperature of 5 degrees Celsius throughout the ablation process, says Elizabeth Pando, a researcher at the Digestive Transplantation Group of the Vall d'Hebron Research Institute at Barcelona.
The Spanish institution is one of the hospitals chosen to integrate the clinical trial. In addition to allowing the tumor to "break down" in the pancreas, the new method also helps to defeat the tumor, the tissue that supports cancer.
"Normally, the stroma of pancreatic cancer usually protects tumor cells."
"One of the hypotheses of the study is that after the destruction of tumor tissue by heat, it would increase the concentration of cells regulating immunity. "Cancer fragments would eventually be" seen "by the patient's body's defense system, thus reactivating the natural protection against tumors and increasing the chances of eliminating the disease. disease. "All of this is part of the study's hypothesis, but we have to wait for definitive results."
Innovative surgery must, however, be supplemented by chemotherapy. Patients selected to participate in the clinical trial first receive preparative chemotherapy drugs for two months, undergo the operation and then undergo a new phase of drug treatment over approximately four months.
Radiofrequency ablation has already been applied. a few years against pancreatic tumors, with apparently promising results, with an average survival time of 20 to 25 months depending on the study.
However, no randomized trial has yet been conducted, that is, a protocol in which two groups of patients are randomly trained, one undergoing operation, the other only receiving standard chemotherapeutic treatment. The randomized trial compares the success rate of each approach in a more statistically reliable manner.
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