Vit-A may help beat pancreatic cancer

Syed Nahas Pasha

London, July 11 (bdnews24.com) ? An international research team from Barts Cancer Institute (BCI) in City of London has found that Vitamin A could hold the key to beating pancreatic cancer.

It has some of the bleakest survival rate of all cancers.

Across the world 250,000 people die from pancreatic cancer every year including one of the disease's highest-profile victims, film star Patrick Swayze, The Dirty Dancing and Ghost star, who died in 2009.

The BCI research showed that by raising levels of Vitamin A in the non-cancerous cells surrounding the malignant ones, the cells' structure changed from facilitating to inhibiting cancer growth.

Dr Hemant Kocher, a consultant pancreatic and liver cancer surgeon at Barts and The London NHS Trust and researcher from BCI, led the team during a four years joint project with the University of Cambridge and the Hubrecht Institute in Holland.

Dr Kocher said: "The findings should lead to better survival rates and different treatment methods for pancreatic cancer, one of the deadliest types of cancer that annually kills almost 7,500 patients in the UK."

Dr Kocher explained his team took a very different approach and thought outside the box to demonstrate a new way of tackling cancer.

Their research based on the seed and soil theory for targeting cancer and found that paying attention to the non-cancerous tissue surrounding the seed of the cancer is as important as focusing on the cancer itself.

Researcher tested the effect of Vitamin A ? which influences the way cells behave ? in samples from pancreatic cancer patients.

People with pancreatic cancer are deficient in many vitamins as the secretion of digestive juices from their pancreas and liver into their bowel is blocked.

Patients are routinely very deficient in Vitamin A, a common vitamin found in a range of food sources such as carrots and broccoli.

Dr Kocher's team finds restoring normal amounts of Vitamin A in non-cancerous cells (the soil) surrounding the cancer seed changed the cells from facilitating to inhibiting cancer growth.

"Vitamin A is just one example of an agent that can be added to successfully alter the nature of the soil," Dr Kocher said.

He said "Other vitamins and medicines could further change the soil's structure so this is really opening up a whole new field of research and possibilities.

The finding also means it's likely that different drugs will be used to treat pancreatic cancer as current chemotherapy only targets the actual cancer cells."

It is rare that patients with pancreatic cancer survive more than five years. Once diagnosed, most do not survive more than a year. Less than 20 percent who have surgery and chemotherapy may survive more than two years.

Alex Ford, Chief Executive at Pancreatic Cancer UK, a charity, commented: "This research into the benefits of injecting Vitamin A into the healthy cells surrounding malignant ones is interesting. Treatment options for pancreatic cancer patients are limited.

"Greater focus on the causes and most effective ways of diagnosing and treating pancreatic cancer is critical if we are going to improve poor survival rates for the disease, which have hardly improved over the past 40 years."

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