“Just Holding On”: New Treatments Offer Hope in the Fight Against Pancreatic Cancer

“I have this inner drive, and I want to keep going,” says 65-year-old Vicky Stinson, who was diagnosed with stage III pancreatic cancer in 2024. One doctor warned her that she had “months — not years — to live.”

“That was really hard,” admits Stinson, who describes herself as an optimist. “And I decided not to accept that prognosis,” she says with a laugh.

Two years later, Stinson continues to defy the odds, NPR reports.

“I have this determination, and I want to keep going,” says the 65-year-old former landscape architect for the U.S. National Park Service.

Stinson remains involved with researchers and hopeful about the emergence of new pancreatic cancer treatments.

Fortunately for Stinson, researchers are making significant progress against pancreatic cancer — a disease that is notoriously difficult to detect and treat. Vicky herself has already benefited from one of the new therapies: a drug called daraxonrasib, which targets and destroys cancer cells carrying a common mutation. Other promising approaches are also emerging, including a personalized mRNA vaccine and a device that delivers alternating electric fields to the abdomen.

Every year, about 70,000 Americans are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and approximately 80% are diagnosed at an advanced stage. Many companies are working on developing more effective screening methods, such as blood tests capable of detecting markers for multiple cancers at once. However, the five-year survival rate for pancreatic cancer remains alarmingly low at just 13%, according to the American Cancer Society.

Stinson hopes science will help her outrun the disease.

What Makes Pancreatic Cancer So Different?

Several factors make pancreatic tumors especially difficult to treat. One of them is the organ’s location.

The pancreas sits behind many other organs, making it difficult to feel, visualize, scan, or operate on, explains surgical oncologist Rajesh Ramanathan, co-director of the GI unit at Banner MD Anderson Cancer Center. According to him, patients also often struggle to identify the source of their discomfort.

“Part of the problem is that the symptoms of pancreatic cancer are usually very vague — abdominal pain, difficulty eating, newly developed diabetes,” Ramanathan says.

Treatment is also complicated because these tumors create what Ramanathan calls a “cocoon” — a protective layer that shields the tumor from veins and arteries that would otherwise deliver chemotherapy drugs to it.

In addition, the pancreas lies close to major veins and arteries. According to oncologist Arif Kamal, chief patient officer at the American Cancer Society, this area of the body is “like Grand Central Station for the body: once cells leave the pancreas, they have easy access to highways leading to distant parts of the body.”

New Genetically Targeted Drugs Offer Hope

Last week, The New England Journal of Medicine published clinical trial results for a promising new drug. The findings showed that daraxonrasib outperformed chemotherapy and allowed patients to live three to four times longer without disease progression — on average 8 to 9 months. Chemotherapy typically controls the disease for only 2 to 3 months.

The drug belongs to a new class of genetically engineered medicines known as RAS inhibitors, which target and destroy cells carrying specific cancer-causing mutations. Similar RAS-targeted therapies have already transformed the treatment of colorectal and lung cancers.

Researchers believe this could become a groundbreaking development for pancreatic cancer as well, because the treatment moves closer to addressing the root cause of the disease.

Stinson participated in the daraxonrasib trial for 13 months and says the greatest advantage was simplicity: one pill instead of hours-long infusions. It also came with fewer side effects than most chemotherapy treatments.

About one-third of patients in the study experienced moderate or severe side effects such as rash and diarrhea, although none discontinued treatment because of them. Stinson developed milder acne-like rashes on her face, neck, and back.

“It kind of brought me back to my teenage years,” she jokes. But she still had enough energy to hike in the Dolomite Mountains in Italy and attend her regular exercise classes. “I had an entire year of almost normal life.”

Daraxonrasib showed such promise that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration allowed its developer, Revolution Medicines, to expand patient access before official approval. Experts say RAS inhibition technology will likely become the backbone of future treatments that, combined with other therapies, could extend survival or even lead to cures.

Other Treatments Are Also on the Horizon

The next challenge is figuring out how to combine the new drug with other therapies and technologies, as researchers are attacking pancreatic cancer from multiple angles.

Last month, a small but promising study demonstrated the potential of personalized mRNA vaccines. Researchers in Germany created individualized mRNA vaccines for each patient based on the genetic profile of their tumor and administered them within nine weeks. In half of the 16 patients, the vaccine triggered an immune response and extended survival for most of them by an impressive six years.

“The magnitude of the immune response was very potent,” says surgical oncologist Vinod Balachandran, principal investigator of the trial and director of the Olayan Center for Cancer Vaccines at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. “It also showed exceptional durability,” meaning the immune system may continue fighting the cancer for years.

Since then, mRNA vaccine technology has advanced further and is now being tested in larger clinical trials.

In addition to these experimental drugs, scientists are also studying ways to alter the tumor microenvironment to make it less favorable for cancer growth or to stimulate the immune system to attack the cancer directly.

Recently, the FDA approved a new device that creates so-called “tumor treating fields.” Electrodes attached to the skin send high-frequency electrical signals that destroy dividing pancreatic cancer cells. These signals also appear to activate the body’s immune response without introducing the additional toxicity associated with chemotherapy.

Oncologist Saro Sarkisian at Frederick Health began using the method in pancreatic cancer patients in March and plans to evaluate results next month. He hopes the device will reduce pain and extend patients’ lives by at least two to three months, as clinical trials have suggested.

“Unfortunately, it’s not curative, but it gives patients additional time with their families,” Sarkisian says.

“Just Holding On”

All of these advances, while encouraging, are also emotionally difficult for current pancreatic cancer patients, for whom new treatments cannot arrive quickly enough.

Among them is Arizona resident Vicky Stinson. In late March, her cancer began progressing again after remaining stable for 13 months on daraxonrasib. The discovery of a new tumor in her ovaries — now stage IV disease — meant she had to stop taking the drug, which she says was deeply upsetting.

Now, she is trying to help other researchers, hoping they may develop a treatment tailored to the genetic profile of her cancer.

“It feels like everything is so close,” she says, “and I feel like a ripe tomato hanging on the vine: if I can just hold on a little longer, maybe this will actually work for me.”

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