Why is pancreatic cancer so hard to treat?
Dr. Linehan: One of the problems with pancreatic cancer is typically at the time of diagnosis it has already spread to the point where there are not curative treatment options. Only about 20 percent of patients with pancreatic cancer are considered candidates for surgery because by the time it is diagnosed, the tumor has spread to the point where surgical resection is not an option because the tumor has either metastasized or it’s, what we call, locally advanced, meaning that it is involving the blood vessels that supply the bowel that cannot be removed. So it’s a minority of patients with the disease that are even considered for surgery because at the time of diagnosis it is already spread. With this new clinical trial, what is the difference with the new treatment? Dr. Linehan: We just published the results of our clinical trial that we performed here over the last few years that was done in patients that were candidates for surgery. These are patients that underwent surgical resecti
