“Without the donors, none of this would have happened. So I am grateful to the donors, to Cleveland Clinic and to VeloSano.”
Due to its aggressive nature and late detection, pancreatic cancer is often seen as a death sentence. However, a surgeon at Cleveland Clinic is determined to change this perception by studying tumors from patients who have survived longer after undergoing chemotherapy.
The pancreas has two main jobs: creating enzymes to help with digestion and producing hormones that regulate your blood sugar. It also plays a crucial role in supporting other organs like your heart, liver and kidneys. However, despite its importance, treatment options for this valuable fish-shaped, spongy organ are very limited.
“For pancreatic cancer, the best chance for a cure is through surgical resection and effective chemotherapy,” says Dr. Naffouje, a surgical oncologist at Cleveland Clinic Fairview Hospital. “The problem is, it’s very hard to accrue patients that we can study to know exactly what kind of chemotherapy will work for their tumors.”
Dr. Naffouje and his team screened over 1,200 patients and launched a study with 40 patients who met their selection criteria of having surgery followed by chemotherapy and survived over three years without having a recurrence. Now, thanks to VeloSano, he is examining samples from those patients and looking at the mutations in the DNA that make them unique.
“We’re trying to identify those tumor signatures for each patient,” says Dr. Naffouje. “By comparing these signatures to those of previous patients who underwent the same treatment process and had exceptional outcomes, we can determine if a particular chemotherapy will be effective upfront. This is based on the knowledge that a previous patient with a matching tumor signature survived for more than three years, disease-free, after receiving a specific type of chemotherapy.”
The VeloSano Grant came at a critical time, providing the boost Dr. Naffouje needs to potentially bring this project to fruition. Although he is inspired by his patients daily, the impact of seeing them at Bike to Cure is truly remarkable.
“Seeing the survivors is what drives all of us, right?” says Dr. Naffouje. “We want everybody to be those survivors, and that’s why we need to improve the quality of our medicine so we can increase our chances of providing that to patients.”
100% For The Cure
