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Promising New Tritherapy Shows Hope for Pancreatic Cancer Treatment
pancreatic cancer remains one of the most challenging cancers to treat, with approximately 16,000 new cases diagnosed each year in France. The disease is frequently enough diagnosed at a late stage, making it tough to cure, and has a dismal five-year survival rate of less than 10%.
The Challenge of Pancreatic Cancer
Pancreatic adenocarcinoma, the most common type of pancreatic cancer, is notably aggressive. Its poor prognosis is largely due to late detection and the development of resistance to existing treatments. For 90% of patients, the cancer is inoperable at the time of diagnosis. Customary chemotherapy has shown limited improvement in survival rates over the past half-century.
A Novel Tritherapy Approach
Researchers at the Spanish National Cancer Research Center (CNIO), led by Mariano Barbacid, are pioneering a new approach to treating pancreatic cancer. Their strategy focuses on concurrently blocking the activity of the KRAS oncogene at three different points. The KRAS gene is mutated in approximately 90% of pancreatic cancer cases. Barbacid explains the concept as “fixing a beam to the ceiling at three distinct points rather of one, making it much more difficult to break.”
The tritherapy combines three agents: daraxonrasib (a KRAS inhibitor), afatinib (approved for certain lung adenocarcinomas), and SD36 (a protein degrader). This combination aims to overcome the limitations of targeting KRAS with a single agent.
Significant Results in Preclinical Studies
In studies published in December 2023 in the journal
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