Pancreatic Cancer

Researchers from the University of Michigan have developed a way of detecting circulating tumor cells in the bloodstream of pancreatic cancer and lung cancer patients. As tumors develop, they shed cells into the bloodstream. Although these circulating tumor cells are vastly outnumbered by millions of other blood cells, detecting them early can potentially improve treatment outcomes.

A research partnership between Michigan Medicine and Gift of Life Michigan has revealed a new pathway to understanding the progression of pancreatic cancer.

The gift will create the Rogel and Blondy Center for Pancreatic Cancer in honor of Max Rogel and Allen Blondy, Richard and Susan Rogel’s fathers, both of whom died from cancer. It will provide support for clinical care and translational research, playing to the strengths of the Rogel Cancer Center’s current robust team of 60 doctors and scientists from 10 departments already working in this area.

An inter-departmental group of researchers at the Rogel Cancer Center received a grant from the National Cancer Institute to further research on radiosensitization, the process of making tumors more vulnerable to radiation treatment.

In a study involving 30 pancreata from donors with no known gastrointestinal disease, researchers found precancerous lesions called pancreatic intraepithelial neoplasia in the majority of the organs. They also discovered that the lesions bore a similar gene expression signature to that of pancreatic cancer. These findings upend conventional wisdom that all PanIN are necessarily precursors to pancreatic cancer; given that the incidence of pancreatic cancer is relatively low, it’s not likely that all (or any) of the lesions are indicators of future cancer.

Rogel Cancer Center researcher Kyoung Eun Lee, Ph.D., assistant professor of pharmacology at Michigan Medicine, has received a new $1.4 million grant from the National Cancer Institute to study the stroma and in particular how low oxygen conditions, or hypoxia, in pancreatic cancer alters the tumor-stroma interaction – and how to capitalize on that to target potential new treatments.