Pancreatic Resectability in Cancers With Known Limited Extension (PRICKLE)

Pancreatic cancer is difficult to treat, and even in a situation where an operation can be performed to remove the cancer, the disease can unfortunately come back soon afterwards. When pancreatic cancer is more advanced, the outcomes are even less positive. Recently, a large international study showed that combining a chemotherapy drug that is standard for treating pancreatic cancer, called gemcitabine with a new chemotherapy drug called Abraxane was more effective than gemcitabine alone for patients with advanced pancreatic cancer.

The purpose of this study is to determine whether this combination of gemcitabine and Abraxane can shrink a pancreatic cancer that is not thought to be operable enough to enable it to be removed by surgery. It is hoped that in this way, the treatment may improve the outcome. In addition, in this study we would like to analyse the appearances of the tumour using imaging, and collect blood and tumour samples to try to confirm laboratory research that has been carried out with this treatment.