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Fred Hutch Cancer Center offers comprehensive care for pancreatic cancer. We offer advanced therapies and new options available only through clinical trials.
The most common treatments for pancreatic cancer are surgery, chemotherapy and radiation therapy. Pancreatic cancer is often diagnosed at later stages when the cancer has grown around major blood vessels or spread to other organs. In these cases, surgery might not be possible. But even then, there is a lot we can do to help control your symptoms and extend your life. We’ll tailor your treatment to you.
This treatment section is about exocrine pancreatic cancer, like pancreatic adenocarcinoma. To learn about treatment for pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (NETs), visit our NET section.
Pancreatic Cancer Care Tailored to You
You and your family are our top priority. At Fred Hutch Cancer Center, we offer comprehensive and compassionate care — personalized to you. You'll have access to the latest treatment options, clinical trials and supportive care services.
Targeted Therapy for Pancreatic Cancer
Targeted therapies are medicines to treat cancer. They work differently than standard chemotherapy. Instead of killing all fast-growing cells or keeping them from dividing, targeted therapies work more selectively against cancer cells.
What Targeted Therapies Do
Targeted therapies do one of three things:
- They target a gene or protein that causes cancer growth.
- They damage cancer cells directly.
- They tell your immune system to attack certain cells. This is also called immunotherapy.
How Targeted Therapy Can Treat Pancreatic Cancer
Your care team at Fred Hutch may recommend medicines to target pancreatic cancer cells that carry a change in a specific gene. These are called BRAF inhibitors, NTRK inhibitors, RET inhibitors, KRAS inhibitors, PARP inhibitors and HER2 inhibitors. Or they may recommend EGFR inhibitors to target a protein on cancer cells that helps them grow.
Before recommending targeted therapy, your care team will first need to test your cancer cells. The tests can show if your cells have features that mean a therapy is likely to be effective.
Immunotherapy for Pancreatic Cancer
Immunotherapies use the power of your immune system to fight your cancer. There are several types of immunotherapies, used against different forms of cancer.
How Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors Can Treat Pancreatic Cancer
For pancreatic cancer, your care team might recommend immune checkpoint inhibitors if:
- Surgeons cannot remove your cancer.
- Your cancer came back after you had treatment.
- Cancer has spread to other parts of your body.
- Chemotherapy is too hard on you or isn’t keeping your cancer from growing.
Immune checkpoint inhibitors are monoclonal antibodies that help your immune system see your cancer cells and destroy them. Examples include pembrolizumab, nivolumab and dostarlimab. These drugs block a protein (PD-1) found on immune cells. Blocking the protein helps boost your immune system’s response. Another option is ipilimumab, which blocks CTLA-4.
Like with targeted therapies, tests of your cancer cells can show if an immune checkpoint inhibitor is likely to work against your cancer.
Nutrition and Pancreatic Cancer
Your pancreas aids in digestion and regulates your blood glucose levels. So, pancreatic cancer is likely to affect the way your body uses food.
It’s important to meet with a registered dietitian when you begin cancer treatment. They can help you know what to expect and make a plan to prevent problems or diagnose and deal with them early. You might also need enzymes, taken in pill form, to help with digestion.
Pancreatic tumors can affect digestion differently based on their type and location. Your Fred Hutch registered dietitian will evaluate your needs and create an individualized nutrition plan for you.
Learn about working with a registered dietitian in our Medical Nutrition Therapy Services.
Pain Management and Pancreatic Cancer
Pain is a common symptom of pancreatic cancer, and managing pain is one of the most important aspects of your care. Fortunately, there are many options to help control pain.
The team in Fred Hutch’s Pain Clinic works with medical oncologists in the Pancreatic Cancer Specialty Clinic to manage patients’ long-term pain with medicines as well as non-drug treatments. Our goals are to relieve any pain you have, reduce any side effects from pain medicines and give you the best possible quality of life.
At Fred Hutch, we understand this may be one of the most intense and challenging experiences you and your family ever go through. We are here to provide the care you need.
Recognized for Excellence
Fred Hutch has been named a Pancreatic Cancer Center of Excellence by the National Pancreas Foundation. This honor is awarded after a rigorous review showing a treatment center offers effective team-based care with a focus on the best possible outcomes and improved quality of life.
In general, people who have the same stage of cancer often have the same or similar treatments. In pancreatic cancer, the main consideration is if the cancer can be completely removed with surgery. From there, your care team will look at other factors, including the stage and your overall health, to put together a personalized treatment plan for you.
Here are common treatment groupings:
- Resectable: A surgeon can remove your tumor. You might have chemotherapy, other medicines, radiation therapy or a combination of these treatments before or after surgery to get the best results.
- Borderline resectable: It would be difficult to remove all the tumor safely as it is. You’ll have chemotherapy, other medicines, radiation therapy or a combination first to try to shrink the tumor. Then surgery might be possible.
- Locally advanced: A surgeon cannot remove all of the tumor because it has spread outside the pancreas to nearby tissues, like blood vessels or lymph nodes. You’ll have other types of treatment. Sometimes surgery becomes an option after other treatments help control the disease.
- Metastatic/unresectable: Because cancer has spread beyond the local area, surgery isn’t a good option. Instead, you might have chemotherapy, other medicines, radiation therapy or a combination of these treatments.
Fred Hutch offers all standard treatment for pancreatic cancer. Our patients also have access to newer options or treatment combinations that you can only get through clinical trials.
Fred Hutch researchers are always looking for better ways to treat pancreatic cancer. We are doing clinical trials of new treatments and combinations of treatments for pancreatic cancer, including chemotherapies, targeted therapies and immunotherapies.
Learn more about pancreatic cancer research.
Your care team at Fred Hutch is here to help you prevent or prepare for side effects and to relieve any side effects you have. The most important step you can take is to speak up and let your team know what you’re feeling. We’ve helped many patients and families through this process and know ways to ease your experience.
Often, there are medicines to help, like anti-nausea drugs. Based on the side effect, there may be a range of other helpful options too, like diet changes, physical therapy and emotional and practical support. The Fred Hutch Patient Education team has resources that go over how to keep common side effects at bay.