It’s not every day a clinical trial earns a standing ovation, but scientists are heralding a new era in the treatment of deadly pancreatic cancer this week thanks to foundational science by the University of California.

Pancreatic cancer is notoriously hard to detect, and it’s the third-leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States. The American Cancer Society estimates 67,000 people will be diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in the U.S. this year. The five-year survival rate is just 13%.

Data on clinical trial outcomes from a new drug received an extraordinary reception at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Chicago on Sunday. The news is widely seen as a game-changer for tackling one of the deadliest cancers.

“Having treated pancreatic cancer for 16 years, I actually started crying in the clinic,” one pancreatic cancer expert said at a media briefing after the drug study results were reported at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting.

“Seeing this magnitude of benefit in a randomized phase 3 study is very encouraging for all patients with advanced pancreatic cancer and is a paradigm shift in this deadly disease,” said Dr. Zev Wainberg, professor of medicine and investigator at the UCLA Health Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center and co-first author of the study, which was published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Basic scientific research conducted at UCSF, and funded by the federal government, laid the groundwork for a better understanding of the cancer-causing mutation that the drug targets.

Read the whole story from the UC Newsroom

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