Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center specialists have figured out how to accurately test drive chemotherapy drugs to learn in advance which drug treatments offer each individual pancreatic cancer patient the best therapeutic journey.Test driving cancer drugs is used widely to test cancer therapies, the Hopkins design is personalized to each patient who has relapsed after an initial course of chemotherapy. The standard drug given at this point is gemcitabine, which has a success rate of less than 10 percent.

Reporting on their work in a recent issue of Clinical Cancer Research and at the September meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research in Chicago, the Hopkins team said it took tiny bits of a patient’s tumor removed after surgery, and implanted them into one or two mice. This process currently requires about six months to get the information on which drugs work best.

Manuel Hidalgo, M.D. Ph.D., associate professor at Hopkin’s Kimmel Cancer Center says that “In the meantime, most patients are receiving their first rounds of chemotherapy and radiation. This information can guide therapy once patients relapse, which is generally in nine to twelve months with pancreatic cancer”.

Pancreatic cancer accounts for more than 33,000 new cases in the United States and almost as many deaths. Less than five percent of patients living beyond five years.

A new study indicates that intake of Vitamin D may significantly cut the risk of developing pancreatic cancer. Vitamin D is essential for good bone and good health as it helps the body to absorb calcium from food. It is found in the diet in foods like fish oils, fortified margarines and dairy products, while the rest of this vitamin is made by the skin from sunlight.

A research team that comprised of US researchers analyzed 46,771 men aged 40 to 75 and 75,437 women aged, aged 38 to 65. Out of these participants, 365 cases of pancreatic cancer were detected.

The study found that people, who included 400mgs of vitamin D in their daily diet, reduced their risk of developing the disease by 43%. However by comparison, those who consumed less than 150mgs of vitamin D only experienced a 22% reduced risk. Consuming more than 400mgs of vitamin D per day did not appear to provide any additional benefits however.

It is difficult to detect and control pancreatic cancer. And thus, the early diagnose of this cancer is very important. Dr Halcyon Skinner of Northwestern University said “Because there is no effective screening for pancreatic cancer, identifying controllable risk factors for the disease is essential for developing strategies that can prevent cancer” He also explained that vitamin D has already shown strong potential for preventing and treating prostate cancer and areas with greater sunlight exposure have lower incidence and mortality rates for a number of cancers, including breast and colon cancer. “This led us to investigate a role for vitamin D in pancreatic cancer risk. Few studies have examined this association and we did observe a reduced risk for pancreatic cancer with higher intake of vitamin D”, he said. “Our results point to a possible role for vitamin D in the prevention and possible reduction in mortality of pancreatic cancer. Since no other environmental or dietary factor showed this risk relationship, more study of vitamin D’s role is warranted”, Dr Skinner added.

The study has been published in the journal, Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers and Prevention.