Hope for treating 'deadliest form of cancer' as scientists find drug combination 'can shrink pancreatic tumours'
* Two anti-cancer drugs L-asparaginase and MEK inhibitor worked together * They starve the tumour of vital nutrients and pathways which help cells multiply * Scientists hope to get the drug combo into clinical trials immediately
Hope has been raised for treating pancreatic cancer as scientists have found drugs that can shrink the killer tumours when taken together.
Researchers found the one-two punch combination starves tumours of key nutrients needed to grow, and stops them adapting to survive.
Both drugs - L-asparaginase and an MEK inhibitor - are already successful for treating patients with different cancers, such as leukaemia.
Experts hope the study, conducted on mice in the laboratory, will allow trials of the combination on pancreatic cancer to be fast-tracked.
Pancreatic is the deadliest form of cancer. Figures suggest as little as five per cent of patients will survive five years after being diagnosed.
It strikes 9,000 people in UK and nearly 57,000 in the US each year. It is difficult to treat and isn't normally diagnosed until it's advanced.
A quarter of patients with the disease die within a month of being diagnosed, and three quarters will die within a year.
The team of scientists at Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute, San Diego, said treatment for pancreatic cancer is behind other forms of the disease.
Senior author Dr Ze'ev Ronai said: 'The sad reality is at present, pancreatic cancer therapy is lagging since there is no effective treatment for these tumors.
'Our study identifies a potential treatment combination that can immediately be tested against these aggressive tumors.'
In their experiments, the scientists used L-asparaginase to starve pancreatic tumors of a key nutrient, asparagine.
Cancer cells need this chemical to make protein to survive. Lasparaginase depletes asparagine.
But instead of dying, it activated a stress response pathway in pancreatic tumour cells that allowed them to make asparagine themselves.
To block the pathway, Dr Ronai and team used an MEK inhibitor which stopped the tumours from making their own asparagene and growing.
The findings, published in the journal Nature Cell Biology, revealed how tumours shrank in mice when the combination drugs were administered.
Dr Ronai told Mailonline: 'Pancreatic tumours were almost eliminated.'
In the same study, the scientists showed that the two treatments also shrank melanoma tumors in mice and inhibited melanoma metastasis.
However, recognising the need for advancing treatment in pancreatic cancer, the scientists have decided to explore clinical evaluation of the combination treatment in these tumours first.
Dr Eytan Ruppin, a study author and chief of the Cancer Data Science Library at the National Cancer Institute, said: 'This research lays the basis for the inhibition of pancreatic tumor growth by a combined synergistic attack.'
Dr Rosalie Sears, a professor at Oregon Health and Science University, said: 'It's clear we're not going to find a single magic bullet that cures cancer but will instead need several drugs that target multiple vulnerabilities.
'This study identifies a promising dual treatment for pancreatic cancer - one of the deadliest cancers - and I look forward to seeing these drugs tested in patients.'
L-asparaginase is a chemotherapy drug used to treat acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) and some other blood disorders.
Pancreatic cancer often doesn’t cause any signs or symptoms in the early stages. The symptoms and how bad they are can vary for each person.
- tummy (abdominal) and back pain - unexplained weight loss - indigestion - loss of appetite - changes to bowel habits – including steatorrhoea (pale, smelly stool that may float), diarrhoea (loose watery stool) or constipation (problems emptying your bowels)
- jaundice (yellow skin and eyes, dark urine and itchy skin) recently diagnosed diabetes problems digesting food – such as feeling full quickly when eating, bloating, burping or lots of wind
- feeling and being sick (nausea and vomiting) - difficulty swallowing - extreme tiredness - generally feeling unwell fever and shivering - blood clots in a vein (deep vein thrombosis)
Pancreatic cancer is the quickest killing cancer.