Individual treatment

There are many different chemotherapies. In the great majority of cases, the appropriate therapy is selected according to the type of tumour (e.g. pancreatic carcinoma) and the stage of the disease, without knowing exactly whether the selected therapy is beneficial to the individual patient. In a new approach, the attempt is made to select a chemotherapy not only according to the type of tumour, but according to the molecular profile of the tumour of an individual patient. These new concepts are under development and constitute an important field of research within the Pancreatic Cancer Centre. Essentially, research focuses on the following:

1. The aim is to find out whether tumours have got properties which can be used to predict whether the tumour will be likely to respond to the standard chemotherapy. For example, this could be the existence of certain proteins in the tumour cells.
2. There is an ever growing number of "targeted" chemotherapeutic agents. These specifically target certain structures which are frequently found in tumour cells or on their surfaces. . These, too, are generally proteins. As part of a research project, it is being studied whether the presence of these target structures is linked to the response of tumours to targeted chemotherapeutic agents.
3. It is being investigated how the tumour cells respond to traditional and to targeted chemotherapeutic agents "in vitro", i.e. in the test tube.

In each case, this requires the examination of a small piece of a surgically removed tumour. Provided the patient consents, this should be done every time surgery on pancreatic carcinoma is performed.

As yet, there are no solid data available confirming the advantages of a patient-individualized or marker-guided therapy. For that reason, deviation from the standard therapies does not make sense at present. However, in certain cases, the data gained for the purposes of research can help in the process of making treatment decisions for individual patients. For example, if a tumour recurs (recidivation) after a standard therapy, the data established "in vitro" may help to select a different and possibly effective therapy.