00:00An astounding breakthrough just happened for one of the toughest cancers.
00:03A therapy called Draxin-Rasib allowed pancreatic cancer patients with advanced disease to live
00:09twice as long as those who received chemotherapy alone.
00:12Former U.S. Senator Ben Sasse, who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer last fall,
00:17has been getting this treatment through a clinical trial.
00:20And he recently told the New York Times that his tumors have shrunk.
00:23While survival rates for other common cancers keep improving,
00:27they have been stubbornly stuck for pancreatic cancer.
00:30That's because of how late the disease is discovered.
00:33About 80% of pancreatic cancer patients' tumors have already spread by the time they're diagnosed.
00:39That makes their cancer inoperable.
00:41But Draxin-Rasib can mean real progress against this cruel disease.
00:45The patients who received the drug lived 13.2 months,
00:49compared to just 6.7 months for those who took chemo alone.
00:53These results stunned cancer specialists.
00:55But so far, everything the public knows about this study comes from a press release
00:59provided by the company that makes the therapy, Revolution Medicines.
01:03Oncologists will get much more information when more comprehensive results are presented
01:07at an upcoming cancer conference.
01:09The big question now is, could this drug offer even more promise
01:13if used in people who are newly diagnosed with pancreatic cancer?
01:17We also need to know about how to mitigate the drug's side effects, which can be intense.
01:22Draxin-Rasib works by shutting down a family of cancer-causing proteins,
01:26but it also affects healthy forms of the proteins, too.
01:29As a result, patients can experience things like rashes and gastrointestinal issues.
01:34Hopefully, Draxin-Rasib is just the start.
01:37The drug has already taught the field that powerfully suppressing this cancer driver actually works.
01:42Now, researchers and oncologists need to throw their brainpower
01:46in understanding how to do that even better.
01:49We'll see you next time.
01:49FortExcites the public health care no care for living.
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