Life expectancy for the 70 patients who were not eligible for surgery, but would have received standard therapy, would have been 10 to 12 months. Our preliminary figures show that life expectancy for the 32 patients who benefited from our treatment is approximately two years. Of the nine patients who underwent surgery, two have died, three are alive with recurrent disease and four are cancer free. One of the four has been cancer free for five years. To my knowledge, before Dr. Isacoff developed his protocol, such a response to chemotherapy or any other form of treatment was unheard of.
Pancreatic cancer is recognized as one of the most difficult cancers to treat.
Using conventional treatments, the mortality rate approaches 100 percent for patients with advanced pancreatic cancer not considered curable by surgical removal of tumors, and 80 percent of those patients die within a year of their diagnosis, Isacoff said. Isacoff cites three beneficial results of his treatment program. First, the median survival rate of patients has been significantly prolonged when compared to that which is expected from standard therapy.