Fascinating case report.

[DaveK1200]

I've stumbled across a fascinating case report on the World Journal of Oncology website. 

 

Their report is about a patient who was diagnosed 8 years earlier with inoperable pancreatic cancer.

 

He was put on palliative treatment but elected to stop it and try alternative therapies due to bad side effects.

 

Eight years later he was still alive and scans showed him seemingly cancer free!

 

The authors of the report suggest it might be interesting to do a trial of conventional treatment together with the 2 herbal products he claims to have used.

 

http://www.wjon.org/index.php/wjon/article/view/957/716

 

Cheers 

 

Dave.

[pauldhodson]

Interesting thanks Dave. The two supplements listed are Disproven1 and Protandim. I've never heard of Protandim, but according to wikipedia, the company which produces it has been dragged over the coals over claims it 'helps' to cure cancer. I tried Disproven1, for months, while my condition progressed. Perhaps the combination worked well. There could be other factors, such as meditation, a very strong belief that he would get better - who knows, but very interesting. It is also interesting that some medical researchers should create a scientific paper on the case, shows they are not all just puppets of big pharma as many believe. Cheers Paul.

[Kezza2]

So Disproven1 rears its ugly head again.  It seems to pop up every couple of years along with a marketing blurb.  If I was just on watchful waiting I "MIGHT" be inclined to give it a go, but with metastatic castrate resistant PCa I will stick with the treatments that have been through the rigorous trials process and have been shown to be effective.

[DaveK1200]

No one is suggesting that anyone should stop their current treatments.

 

The authors of this documented case report simply suggested it might be worth a clinical trial of standard treatments together with the supplements. 

 

The patient in the report developed intolerance and complications with his chemo and declined further treatment.

That was his call,  and I can understand him doing that with inoperable pancreatic cancer.

 

I just find it fascinating because I have been led to believe that pancreatic cancer is one of the worst that there is.

So I hope people will take the time to read the full case report.

 

Cheers 

Dave 

 

[DaveK1200]

I’ve mentioned this before, but I really feel there might be the possibility of a tiny glimmer of hope in this case report published on the World Journal Of Oncology website.

 

So I implore everyone to please read it, even if you are completely against any form of complementary supplement.

I know its about pancreatic cancer and not prostate cancer, but please read it anyway.

 

The full case report can be seen at  http://www.wjon.org/index.php/wjon/article/view/957/716 

(WJON indicates World Journal of Oncology)

 

The case report has sections headed Abstract, Introduction, Case Report, Discussion and Conclusion.

 

Below is a copy of some of those sections to provide a taste of what the full report contains.

The full case report can be seen via the link provided above, it goes into even more detail and includes scan images.

 

Begin quote from case report...

 

Abstract

Pancreatic cancer is the fourth leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States, and is considered uniformly fatal when patients present with unresectable, advanced-stage disease at the time of diagnosis. Long-term survival of patients with advanced-stage pancreatic adenocarcinoma remains rare, despite advances in adjuvant chemoradiation protocols. A 73-year-old male presented to our emergency department with abdominal pain and a history of biopsy-proven, stage III pancreatic adenocarcinoma. His initial staging CT scan and trans-duodenal ultrasound had demonstrated a stage IIa (T3, N0, Mx) lesion. On surgical exploration, he was up-staged to stage III (T4, N0, Mx), noting encasement of the superior mesenteric vessels and involvement of the portal vein. He underwent palliative choledochojejunostomy and was treated with 4 months of oxaliplatin and capecitabine, with concurrent radiation therapy (50.4 Gy), followed by 4 months of gemcitabine. After 7 months, the patient withdrew from therapy due to treatment intolerance. He then turned to self-medication with non-traditional herbal therapies. After 3 years of surveillance, he was lost to follow-up until presenting to our facility with abdominal pain 8 years after his initial diagnosis. On diagnostic CT scan during his current presentation for abdominal pain, he was found to have no evidence of pancreatic cancer. Based on our review of the literature, we present the longest known survival of a patient with surgically unresectable pancreatic adenocarcinoma. Further study of this patient’s phenotypic or genotypic characteristics may provide insight into better therapeutic agents, or a predictive subset of patients who will benefit from specific chemotherapeutic options.

 

Introduction

Pancreatic cancer is the fourth leading cause of cancer death in the United States, and portends a poor prognosis, in part due to delays in diagnosis caused by the subtleties in presentation and the limited efficacy of therapeutic options [1]. This is especially true with advanced-stage cancer. Currently, surgical resection is the only potentially curative therapeutic option for pancreatic cancer [2]. A recent case series including 269 patients, published in 2014, compared initially unresectable pancreatic cancer patients to those treated with palliative chemotherapy for advanced-stage recurrent disease. In this study, the 2-year survival rates were noted to be poor at 9.6% and 24.2%, respectively [3]. Prognosis for all patients diagnosed with pancreatic cancer is unfavorable, with overall 5-year survival rates less than 5% [4].

A PubMed query searching for long-term survival in patients with unresectable pancreatic cancer yields only two case reports. The first case report described a 68-year-old female with biopsy-proven, poorly differentiated adenocarcinoma with advanced-stage, surgically unresectable disease. The patient received gemcitabine therapy after palliative hepaticojejunostomy was reported to have attained a 4-year survival at the time of publication [5]. The second case report described a 61-year-old Japanese female with a 3.0 cm, stage III pancreatic adenocarcinoma invading the superior mesenteric vessels on CT imaging. At the time the publication was written, she was noted to have survived more than 65 weeks from presentation, after an initial palliative chemoradiation treatment regimen of gemcitabine 250 mg/m²/week for 6 weeks and radiation therapy of 50.2 Gy followed by 57 cycles of weekly gemcitabine [6].

Often, the only options for patients with unresectable disease are palliative surgical diversion and/or various adjuvant regimens consisting of gemcitabine in combination with a variety of other chemotherapy medications. Historically, 5-fluorouracil was the sole therapy for pancreatic adenocarcinoma; however, gemcitabine became the backbone of nearly all chemotherapy regimens in the mid-1990s [7]. In 1997, gemcitabine was shown to be superior to 5-fluorouracil in treatment of advanced, symptomatic pancreatic cancers, with a significant improvement in both pain and performance status, as well as increased overall survival [8]. In 2007, a hallmark multi-center randomized controlled trial established the superiority of the FOLFIRINOX regimen (oxaliplatin, irinotecan, fluorouracil, and leucovorin) versus gemcitabine, in terms of overall survival, for first-line treatment of metastatic pancreatic cancer [9].

 

Discussion

Pancreatic cancer continues to be one of the most challenging areas in oncology, with an exceptionally poor prognosis for the majority of patients. Longevity with advanced-stage disease is quite limited and there are very few cases of long-term survival after palliative surgery and chemoradiation in the literature. Chemotherapy has demonstrated limited success for advanced pancreatic cancers, and more efficacious therapies are needed.

Based on our review of the literature, this is the first presented case of a patient with surgically unresectable disease who had a complete response to adjuvant chemoradiation therapy for pancreatic cancer. Given this patient’s oncologic results and long-term survival, we were skeptical of his initial diagnosis. We therefore obtained his original pathology slides and had them read by three pathologists from two institutions who were blinded to the patient’s diagnosis and previous pathologic interpretations.

Patients with advanced pancreatic cancer sometimes seek alternative remedies when conventional therapies either fail or are deemed futile. In this case, our patient chose to use Protandim and ... Disproven1 ....

 

Conclusion

Based on a review of the literature, we present the longest known survival of a patient with surgically unresectable, biopsy-proven pancreatic adenocarcinoma. This patient has survived 8 years since his initial diagnosis with no active disease noted on imaging studies. Further scientific review of this index case may provide insight into better therapeutic options or provide for a predictive subset of patients who will benefit from specific chemotherapeutic options.

 

End quote from case report..

 

 

The full case report includes also includes the references.

 

Thank you for your time.

 

Dave