When former Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse was diagnosed with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer, he was given three to four months to live. However, a new drug by Revolution Medicines is giving him precious more time with family and providing new hope to patients with the deadly disease.
Revolution Medicines reported that patients who took its small molecule pill daraxonrasib lived a median of 13.2 months, compared to 6.7 months for those who received chemotherapy. The drug reduced the risk of death by 60% compared to the chemotherapy group.
Doctors are heralding the results as a revolution in pancreatic cancer treatment, citing a six-month survival benefit as enormous in any cancer trial. Experimental therapies are considered successful if they extend survival by even a few months.
The five-year survival rate for Stage 4 pancreatic cancer is 3%, making treatment options scarce and the prognosis bleak. However, the new drug shows promise in targeting RAS mutations that drive tumor growth in 90% of pancreatic patients.
While the drug can cause unpleasant side effects, it is considered a more tolerable option than chemotherapy, which suppresses the immune system and makes patients susceptible to secondary infections.
Mr. Sasse has vouched for the drug's benefits, noting that his CA 19-9 levels had plunged from north of 8,000 to about 374. Other experimental treatments are also showing promise, including a next-generation RAS inhibitor and a combination therapy that reduced the risk of death by 38% when combined with chemotherapy.
Advances in AI have also shown the potential to detect pancreatic cancer on CT scans at earlier stages and with greater sensitivity than can radiologists.
