Predicting how well pancreatic cancer patients will respond to chemotherapy
Background
Pancreatic cancer is the fifth cause of cancer-related death in Australia and has an extremely low five-year survival rate. Even with the best care, patients with advanced tumours will, in most cases, die within 12 months of their diagnosis. Patients with advanced pancreatic cancer are often treated with chemotherapy to help relieve and improve survival.
The research
In patients with pancreatic cancer, the amount of chemotherapy they receive is based on their overall fitness without knowing if the drug will even be effective. With this project, Dr Farindani will develop an innovative method to predict how well a patient with pancreatic cancer will respond to chemotherapy to make sure they receive effective treatment. The team will use pancreatic cancer cells found in the blood of patients to measure different molecular types (such as RNAs, proteins and DNA mutations) of each individual cell. By analysing single cells, they team will be able to study a diverse population of advanced pancreatic cancer cells and detect important information on rare cells that could be missed if only looking at a group of cells.
The impact
This innovative research could be a breakthrough in treating pancreatic cancer and improving survival outcomes. Understanding the genetic make-up of individual cells will allow for an in-depth analysis of how well patients will respond to treatment, reducing unnecessary suffering from ineffective drug treatments and hopefully leading to a longer survival for patients.
If successful, the Dr Farindani’s long-term aim is to design a clinical trial whereby a patient’s blood and the cancer cells analysed a few days before they start chemotherapy .The results would be sent to the oncologist who will use the information to decide on the best regimen for the patient. The hope is then to use this approach in other solid cancers for personalised chemotherapy.