74 percent of patients die within the first year of a pancreatic cancer diagnosis.
As the fourth leading cause of cancer death in the United States, 74 percent of pancreatic cancer patients die within the first year of diagnosis, according to researchers in a new study.
Within five years of diagnoses, that survival rate drops to seven percent.
Now, scientists at Florida Atlantic University’s Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute have found a potential new weapon against pancreatic tumors — a natural compound in a deep-sea marine sponge, called leiodermatolide.
In a paper published in the International Journal of Cancer (IJC), the researchers show that leiodermatolide can shrink pancreatic tumor size in vivo. In addition to showing that the compound induces programmed cell death in pancreatic cancer cells, the researchers also showed how it inhibits the growth of other cancer cells, such as melanoma, lymphoma, colon cancer, and glioblastoma (a rare and deadly form of brain cancer).
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The researchers write that, in a mouse model of pancreatic cancer, leiodermatolide exhibited significant tumor reduction when compared to gemcitabine, a standard drug for pancreatic cancer, as well as controls.
"Given the uniqueness of its mechanism of action, its potency, its selectivity for cancer cells, and its in vivo efficacy, leiodermatolide is an extremely interesting compound that merits further studies to determine its therapeutic potential for addressing some of the most devastating forms of cancer," lead author Esther Guzmán, associate research professor at FAU Harbor Branch, said in a press release.
According to co-author Amy Wright, a research professor at FAU, the Harbor Branch drug discovery program aims to find treatments for pancreatic cancer and other infectious diseases, and the researchers are also collaborating with other scientists to help treat other forms of cancer, malaria, tuberculosis, and neurodegenerative diseases.
"The primary goal of our marine biomedical and biotechnology program is to discover marine natural products with utility as medicines or as tools to better allow us to understand disease processes," Wright concluded.
