A Breakthrough Treatment Helps Patients with Pancreatic Cancer Live Five Times Longer

As individuals are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, it has been long perceived as a death sentence. Several cases of patients with pancreatic cancer have revealed less than 1 percent chances of survival for more than 5 years after the diagnosis of the deadly disease. However, a recent study by a team of researchers at the prestigious Minnesota Mayo Clinic has created new hope for the patients having pancreatic cancer. The results of the study aim at extending the survival rate of patients by allowing them to love five times longer than conventional cases.

The New Revolutionary Study

Doctors and their respective teams at the reputed Mayo Clinic in Minnesota have spent as many as 7 years in preparing a clinical trial for a new type of treatment that enables the patients to live five times longer than the usual cases. In some cases, the patients might even be cured with the help of this breakthrough treatment. The cancer specialists at the Mayo Clinic have observed that delivering standard treatments like radiotherapy & chemotherapy to the patients with pancreatic cancer right before the surgery can have a significant effect on the overall survival rate. In previous cases, cancer that used to spread outside the organ was not delivered life-saving treatments. This is because the doctors believed that it was impossible to remove all the cancer tissues while finding it difficult to repair the damaged arteries, blood vessels, and veins connecting different vital organs.

Treatments Having a Significant Impact on the Survival Rate

In the recent observations, Dr. Mark Truty –surgical oncologist at the Mayo Clinic, has found that blasting the pancreatic cancer cells with radiation & drugs before the surgical removal of the tumor while replacing the arteries at the same time tends to have a major impact on the overall survival rate. During the 7-year study at the Mayo Clinic in which the patients with pancreatic cancer were given just around 12-18 months to live, the overall survival rate increased to as much as 4.9 years after receiving this breakthrough treatment. Most of the patients are still alive. This tends to create new hope for patients with pancreatic cancer all around the world.