ListNook

rTpure 5 days ago +404

any advancement in the treatment of pancreatic cancer is really good news this disease is often a death sentence with no reprieve

404

DontTedOnMe 5 days ago +132

Couldn't agree more. It's almost a cliché, but my favorite high school teacher was diagnosed with pancan a week after she retired and then passed away less than 5 months later. I'll never forget visiting her in the final days and what she looked like, it really drove home how vicious this disease is and what it does to a person. It fucked me up.

132

Gimme_The_Loot 5 days ago +46

Similar story with my uncle. Diagnosed early in the year, we had a big get together over the summer so everyone could be together and he was gone before years end.

46

Osiris32 5 days ago +21

My uncle as well, he was gone in under a year but was a shell of a man by thr end. My best friend's mom is currently battling it. She's already gone beyond what the doctors projected, she's made it a full year. But she lucked out and caught it early, and even then, the prognosis isn't good. She is not going to live to see her grandkids grow up. F*** cancer.

21

vegetaman 5 days ago +3

Yeah of the people i know that had it most didnt make 2 years and one they caught at stage 2 by accident made it 5. It’s brutal.

3

Desperate_Tea_6297 5 days ago +37

Yeah, with pancreatic cancer, “any” really does mean any. Doubling survival here is like going from a brick wall to a cracked door. Hopefully this pushes more funding into early detection too.

37

Walmartian_Beta 5 days ago +18

My grandmother was diagnosed back in early 2000, and she was dead within 3 months. She was grateful though, she was afraid of more surgery and chemo - the doctor told her there was no use in treating the kind of cancer she had, he told her it would kill her in 3 months or 5, and those last two would be hell if she tried chemo.

18

airbagfailure 5 days ago +16

My mums boss passed away a week ago. He lasted 6 months. My mum was one of his first employees and he took care of her when it came to salary. He even paid for a trip to South America, and a trip to Europe, for both of us. I don’t even work for him. He was a really nice man. She worked for him for over 20 years, and now he’s gone. F*** cancer.

16

lostroadrunner22 5 days ago +15

Stunningly fast death sentence.

15

UnitSmall2200 5 days ago +14

That's because it's usually detected way too late

14

whitemiketyson 4 days ago +3

God forbid screenings be covered by insurance...

3

Jinnax 4 days ago +11

There are no screenings and no symptoms. By the time you notice something related (like jaundice) the disease is already in its final stage.

11

whitemiketyson 4 days ago +1

Would an MRI not detect it?

1

palcatraz 4 days ago +3

It might seem paradoxical but more screenings don’t always lead to better outcomes. MRI screenings take a lot of manpower and equipment. There are already people with actual health complaints that are on waitlists for an MRI because their problem isn’t urgent enough. Now imagine how much worse those waitlists would become if we start screening everybody on the very small chance they have pancreatic cancer. Then for the people undergoing the screenings there are potential ill health effects as well. The human body isn’t perfect. Everybody has weird stuff inside of them that 95% of the time means nothing and will never cause you any issue. But if you start putting everybody into MRIs for screening, a lot of those oddities are going to be detected. Now doctors need to do further tests to make sure that oddity isn’t dangerous. Result even more strain on the medical system but also a lot of strain and stress and potentially painful tests on persons. All while it’s probably nothing. Preventive screenings work really great if the test is minimally invasive and takes little equipment/man power to carry out *and* if the disease you are screening for is common enough under the population *and* if we have treatment methods, both in general, and ones that are more effective in an early stage.

3

haze_from_deadlock 3 days ago +1

You can't just MRI everyone, especially people who have metal in their bodies We could make it routine like colonoscopies but it's not a fast and easy fix, there would be a lot of pain points

1

Incendras 5 days ago +4

a 100% increase in survival rate is amazing too.

4

NorwegianCollusion 5 days ago +7

So from just below 0% to just above 0%? Edit: Ah. This wiseass (me, not you) forgot to read the article. It's not a survival rate but a survival length.

7

mytransaltaccount123 5 days ago +4

my grandma got diagnosed with it and was gone by the years end

4

MrFishAndLoaves 5 days ago +2

The anatomic soul is in the head of the pancreas.

2

KimJongFunk 5 days ago +156

> People who took daraxonrasib typically lived for 13.2 months versus 6.7 months for people who took chemotherapy, an increase of 6.5 months 6.5 extra months can make a lot of difference for people who don’t have much time left.

156

PM_ME_CHIPOTLE2 5 days ago +43

100%. Every day longer is a day closer to the next miracle drug that will keep you going.

43

plutoglint 5 days ago +29

Like all cancer trials this one started on people who already had tried and failed first line treatment and are deep into progression. The effects will likely be ever more dramatic on patients newly diagnosed.

29

Pulmonic 4 days ago +8

Yup. A study drug gave us three extra months with a close friend with a rare cancer. That time mattered-it really did. It’s not long on paper but it can give people time to tie up loose ends and make good memories.

8

mreg215 5 days ago +68

This is truly gut wrenching because my dad just passed away from pancreatic cancer last year , in 6 months he went from my dad to constantly being in agonizing pain, i hope this helps anyone with this c*** because no ones deserve to go through the pain of seeing a loved one suffer from cancer, i hope this discovery truly helps someone that was in the same position of desperation i was in but couldn’t do anything as the doctors mentioned all options were off the table, its a different pain feeling those words pierce your heart. So hopefully this gets pushed through for patient care asap. #fuckcancer

68

OriginalChildBomb 4 days ago +6

I'm very sorry for your loss, friend. Here's hoping they keep finding new and better solutions.

6

Pulmonic 4 days ago +3

I’m so, so sorry. As an onc nurse who’s lost loved ones to cancer, I have an idea of how you’re feeling. The time I had to administer drugs to a patient that probably would’ve saved a loved one of mine had they gotten sick just a little later, I broke down hysterically sobbing as soon as I pulled into my driveway. It’s such mixed feelings. On one hand, you’re glad new treatments exist and others might be spared the hell we now live in. On the other hand, why oh why couldn’t we have been spared too?? I’m so sorry for your loss and for the wave of intense, mixed feelings things like this bring.

3

Ukiah 5 days ago +48

My brother got diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in May of 2025. Visited him on his 50th birthday at the beginning of November 2025. His chemo was going well with his tumors reduced or gone. Encouraging news and thought he was going to be a statistical outlier. He died of pancreatic cancer 3 days after Christmas 2025.

48

th3syst3m 5 days ago +16

I'm sorry for you loss, my father died of pancreatic cancer. It's nice to see encouraging news about treatment. It's crazy how many "breakthroughs" I've read about cancer treatment over the last 20 years and how a few people I love have died relatively quickly after being diagnosed. I'm sure we're getting there eventually, I just wish we got there faster.

16

Asclepius777 5 days ago +33

"Daraxonrasib broadly targets RAS mutations" I don't know how many of you know anything about RAS, but it's an oncogene in about 20% of every type of cancer. The real headline here is "novel therapy targets RAS mutations". PD-1 inhibitors and other immunotherapies that were designed for one specific type of cancer have shown they are robust in treating multiple forms of cancer. And we are still in the low hanging fruit phase. Some trials are even looking at immuno ONLY therapies, and just skip the puking

33

N40189 5 days ago +7

So True. RAS's switch like activity is prominent in many disease states from various cancers to psychiatric disorders. So like checkpoint inhibitors a very big hammer for a delicate job. The post is click bait but the trial demonstrated an increase in survival from over 6 months to over 13 months. So yes statistically it doubles survival. It was a company funded study so someone will have to dig through the details and ponder the unpublished data.

7

Asclepius777 4 days ago +1

Many chemotherapy agents, if given as singular agents, will not do much of anything. Mostly because the cancer becomes resistant and you don't. But there is a possibility for a multi-drug approach with immunotherapy drugs to attack so many biological targets that the cancer cells have no time to adapt, or possibly they biologically CANT adapt

1

N40189 4 days ago +1

Certainly using multiple drugs with different mechanisms of action have benefits. But it is also important to remember those many biological targets results in intolerable side effects that often results in termination of therapy and spending time in the hospital due to autoimmune complications. The goal is to get specific mutation based therapies

1

Asclepius777 3 days ago +1

it's less additive and more a threshhold thing. At some point when you target enough systems there's a breaking point where those systems have run out of room to adapt. ex: kidney function is a thing you can sort of deal with, kidney function WITH liver failure is MOF and you die.

1

nebrivor1 5 days ago +47

Too late for a good friend of mine. He found out in September 2025, his funeral was in November. F*** Cancer. Pancreatic especially.

47

Sipyloidea 4 days ago +3

My uncle asked me in January to drive him to the doctor for a stomach pain, 5 weeks later he was gone. He said he hadn't noticed anything before the stomach pain in January.

3

nebrivor1 4 days ago +1

That's what happened to my friend. Had his 60th birthday party in June, stomach pain in late Aug. diagnosis by Sept, gone in Nov.

1

DarthScoobyDoo 5 days ago +18

OS of 6.2 vs 13.7 months. It's not much in vacuum but really good for pancreatic cancer.

18

bicycle_mice 5 days ago +6

That’s HUGE. My friend died and had two very young children. Even an extra six months would have been a lot.

6

Conscious-Salt-1523 5 days ago +13

Pancreatic cancer sucks cause the first doc appointment, they will tell u the odds of survival even for 1 year and all hopes are dashed on day 1.....i have to be ignorant of the odds just to push thru...easy for me to say but for my spouse I felt she gave up that day. any news like this will help.

13

drumallday 4 days ago +2

I felt like my doctor was determined to destroy any sense of hope I could have of beating it. She told me that there was only a 1 in 3 chance that the chemo would cause the tumor to shrink and a less than 5% chance it would shrink the tumor enough to have surgery. Then she said I had about 18 months to live. And there were no clinical trials. I went home, collected my thoughts, then called the cancer center and demanded a new doctor. That was 9 years ago.

2

Enough-Storage2057 5 days ago +10

Just a few months late for my Moms

10

becksrunrunrun 5 days ago +5

I'm sorry for your loss. I miss my mother everyday and will til the day it's my time. But I will say, the grief changes shape, it won't be like this forever. ❤️‍🩹

5

Enough-Storage2057 4 days ago +1

Thank you

1

Radiant-Objective-35 5 days ago +11

My father in law, died from it in December, dude was fine and everything, from June and then around late august he was having issues where he felt full, got the point where he was getting sick form feeling full so often, thought it was his gallbladder, nope, ended up being Stage 4 Pancreatic cancer, diagnosed in September, did chemo, and died before christmas. The man was literally all set to retire as well, spent his whole life living below their means so he and his wife could retire at 65 and live a fun life as old people. Even bought a florida home, and was telling me how he cant wait to have my sons, and his other grandkids down to it. Shit sucks ass. F*** pancreatic cancer.

11

FrescaFloorshow 5 days ago +6

Lost my mom at 64...they caught it incidentally (seen on CT scan for a hernia)...stage 2/3. She got 3 years, we thought she might actually beat it, but it suddenly just ate her up at the end. F*** pancreatic cancer in particular.

6

Radiant-Objective-35 5 days ago +5

AGreed, it just ate him up, the man couldnt eat, and he had as stent in place because of a blockage, and once he started chemo the man never had a good day. He at some point got E.Coli, and then a blood infection during the treatment. He went to his florida home once, when they bought it, and sadly never returned.

5

FrescaFloorshow 4 days ago +2

I'm so sorry 🫂

2

rutdog 4 days ago +5

That's how they caught my Dad's as well. Went in for a CT due to chronic back pain. Turns out he was already stage 4, saw a dark spot on his liver which had spread from his pancreas. He made it 18 months, which I know now was truly a blessing from how horrible this cancer is. It's amazing your mom got 3 years.

5

FrescaFloorshow 4 days ago +1

Sorry for your loss as well, friend 🫂 My mom survived so many near-death incidents, she seemed nearly invincible. But pancreatic cancer is the worst FU

1

Horror_Visit_7337 5 days ago +8

Targeting RAS has been one of the toughest problems in cancer research, so this is genuinely promising. If a drug like this can hit multiple RAS mutations instead of just one niche variant, it could have a much broader impact, similar to how immunotherapies ended up working across different cancers.

8

delayedkarma 5 days ago +9

It's insanely hard to catch early since you don't want to go poking around the pancreas if you don't need to and what noticable signs there are in the early stages can be applied to so many other causes. My girlfriend made it for another 16 months after diagnosis, almost unheard of for the shape she was in when she was diagnosed. She rebounded quite well from the treatments (though there definitely some more difficult times) and got to meet her life goal of visiting 40 countries before she turned 40. She hit 45 total when she passed 6 months after that while on a trip with her mom to the south of France

9

snakeayez 5 days ago +8

This is great news all around but as a sufferer of a pancreatic illness and an increased risk of pancan, this makes me hopeful. C*** is terrible

8

wip30ut 5 days ago +7

my boss's brother passed from pancreatic cancer last yr... he was literally gone in 9 months! I literally was talking to him at a end of summer bbq & he just got back from treking in the Andes. Pancreatic cancer is really tough to diagnose in its early stages & spreads so quickly.

7

MaximumAd9779 5 days ago +6

I work in pharmacology and unfortunately most, if not all, current chemo therapies are about buying you time - not curing it :(. There are some one-off cases though! We seem to be doing ok in treating blood cancers.

6

ReferenceNice142 4 days ago +6

KRAS has long been considered undruggable. It was a privilege to work on one of the first KRAS G12C inhibitors. Going from literally no options to potentially multiple options is huge. Now the big issue with pancreatic cancer is it’s found too late. Roughly half are found at stage IV which means it’s metastasized which is usually why there are symptoms in the first place. If we can catch it at stage I even stage II, the survival rate will change drastically. There are a lot of on going studies regarding early detection. But I will say if you have a lot of pancreatic cancer in your family, especially young (under 55), or BRCA2 mutations in your family (or other mutations), talk to your doctor about pancreatic screening.

6

Particular-Ice4615 5 days ago +6

Who needs that when I could just own one of the biggest technology companies ever and then go on an all fruit diet, and when that doesn't I could use my money to jump the line in getting a new pancreas before eventually wasting it for someone who needed it it by dropping dead because the cancer already spread too fast when doing the fruit diet.

6

drumallday 4 days ago +2

Steve Jobs had a Neuroendocrine tumor in his pancreas. This drug treats adenocarcinoma. Neuroendocrine tumors are much slower growing. Adenocarcinoma is more aggravating. Steve Jobs had surgery to remove part of his pancreas after his diagnosis. At the time, drug treatments for Neuroendocrine tumors were extremely limited. He didn't have a pancreas transplant. He had a liver transplant years after his pancreas removal. He had to pay to be on a list at additional hospitals, but criteria to get an organ is determined by health if the patient and compatibility of with the donor and money doesn't allow someone to jump the list

2

throwaway9gk0k4k569 5 days ago +9

Just a reminder that fruit smoothies are not a cure for cancer. Steve Jobs believed otherwise which is why he's dead. Steve Jobs was a moron.

9

hwnn1 5 days ago -1

No, he is dead because he had pancreatic cancer. Fruit smoothies worked about as well as standard of care at the time.

-1

HappyStalker 5 days ago +12

Steve Jobs had PNET, a different and rarer type of pancreatic cancer with a 5 year survival rate of 50%. He delayed treatment for 9 months which is longer than a typical pancreatic cancer patient lives after diagnosis with the most aggressive treatment.

12

drumallday 4 days ago +2

A "typical" pancreatic cancer patient has adenocarcinoma. You can't compare survival and progression of adenocarcinoma and Neuroendocrine tumors. Steve Jobs lived 7 years after his diagnosis

2

Mediocre_Presence839 5 days ago +4

I’m sure it will not be denied by the insurance companies. 👋

4

FreeUsePolyDaddy 5 days ago +12

Actually, because it is a pill, the odds of it being covered I would say are far higher. Biologics that require IV infusion are massively more expensive to provide for multiple reasons.

12

HuskyBlueBoy 5 days ago +2

Advancement in cancer care? Uh oh this administration is about to get mad.

2

LargeSinkholesInNYC 3 days ago +1

Pancreatic cancer is cooked.

1

issm 5 days ago +1

Wasn't there a MRNA vaccine a few months ago that increased survival rates like 3x+? Wonder if this stacks.

1

drumallday 4 days ago +2

The mRNA vaccine is for surgical patients to prevent recurrence. 80% of pancreatic cancer is found too late for surgery. So this new drug will help those patients.

2

JJscribbles 5 days ago +1

Great. Can everyone who has it afford it, or just wealthy people?

1

Safatch 5 days ago

Who receives these amazing drugs that I hear news reports about daily? Every person I know who has been diagnosed receives the same awful chemo treatments.

0

FreeUsePolyDaddy 3 days ago +1

Many drugs that come out for cancer apply to situations after other existing treatments have been followed and are beginning to not work any more. In these situations it is not a case of denying a better treatment, it is that the new drug may only be relevant to the state that cancer is in after it starts rejecting the earlier treatment. Some cancer cells form mechanisms that have adapted to the earlier drug and explicitly evict it from their cells. The new drugs are really for a new variant of the old cancer.

1

Odd-Syllabub-3642 5 days ago -7

This is amazing! It’s just a shame that I can’t trust my government to not have released a cure for cancer without it being extremely profitable sooner. Better late than never.

-7

New pancreatic cancer drug doubles survival compared to standard-of-care in late-stage clinical trial

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