Making the impossible possible

Deep expertise drives advances in pancreatic cancer.

By Mark Reynolds

Credit: Matt MillerRoheena Panni, MD, believes that clinical trials at Siteman Cancer Center help her work to develop immunotherapies for pancreatic cancer.

Cancer of the pancreas is uniquely lethal. Despite being one of the rarer forms of cancer, it is the third leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States, and cases are on the rise. Clinical advances, many made possible by WashU Medicine researchers at Siteman Cancer Center, have improved survivorship rates from 5% 20 years ago to about 12% today, meaning an additional 4,000 lives are saved each year. Still, according to WashU Medicine physicians and scientists who specialize in pancreatic cancer, there is much more work to do. 

Most patients with pancreatic cancer don’t experience symptoms until the disease is advanced, making this cancer particularly difficult to treat. Identifying the origins of the disease is crucial and may lead to more effective treatments.

“For patients with a rare, difficult-to-treat cancer like pancreatic cancer, it benefits them to be at Siteman Cancer Center, where we have a team with special expertise and offer the most advanced treatments and also the opportunity to enroll in clinical trials that have the potential to significantly improve outcomes,” said Roheena Panni, MD, a WashU Medicine assistant professor of surgery.

Panni is working to develop immunotherapies targeted to pancreatic cancer. Much of what is needed to get ahead of this aggressive tumor would not be possible without the wide range of expertise available at WashU Medicine, she said. 

Some of the pancreatic cancer clinical trials at Siteman are part of WashU Medicine’s prestigious Specialized Programs of Research Excellence (SPORE) grant in pancreatic cancer from the National Cancer Institute — one of only three such grants in the U.S. Co-led by WashU Medicine’s David G. DeNardo, PhD, a professor of medicine and co-leader of the pancreatic SPORE at WashU Medicine and co-leader of the Tumor Immunology Program at Siteman, and Ryan C. Fields, MD, the Kim and Tim Eberlein Distinguished Professor, chief of the surgical oncology section in the Department of Surgery and co-leader of the Solid Tumor Therapeutics Program at Siteman, the grant funds three major research projects: One is aimed at a strategy to make pancreatic cancer more sensitive to immunotherapy; a second investigates ways to make the cancer respond to innovative patient-specific vaccines tailored to individual patients based on unique characteristics of their tumors; and a third explores an anti-inflammatory compound that has the potential to make pancreatic cancer more vulnerable to chemotherapy. 

“We are excited about these clinical trials and the opportunities they provide to patients to try new and innovative therapies backed by strong science,” DeNardo said. “We have made some progress in recent years, and we hope the new treatments we are investigating will further improve outcomes for our patients with pancreatic cancer.”

Published in the Autumn 2024 issue