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A Novel Combination of Antibody-Targeted Radiotherapy and Immunotherapy for the Treatment of Advanced Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma

Tullio Esposito

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Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR)
Pancreatic cancer is one of the deadliest cancers with only 8% of patients surviving 5 years. The reason is that the cancer cells have often already spread or metastasized at the time of detection; it is almost impossible using conventional chemotherapy and radiation therapy to reach and treat them all. To try to improve this delivery problem, we plan to test the use of an antibody fragment, called an ""scFv"", to deliver a novel combination therapy directly to cancer cells in the main tumor and also in metastases. This antibody fragment will not only carry a radioactive isotope to kill the tumors, but also a molecule called a ""TLR9 agonist"" that can activate the body's own immune system to fight the cancer. Although either therapy approach can only induce an incomplete tumor response, there is significant preliminary data that indicates that the combination of both might be powerful enough to overcome the cancer's defence against treatment.

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