A new research document was published in volume 16 of Tumult On June 10, 2025, entitled “Excellent correspondents in pancreatic cancer: a series of multiple institutional cases of a rare incident”.
The study, led by the first writer Kavin Sugumar and the corresponding writer Jordan M. Winter, from the University Hospital of Seidman Cancer Center, reports a rare group of pancreas cancer (PC) patients who responded notice well to the immunotherapy. The analysis, which includes data from 14 patients in multiple US institutions, identifies the results that could help improve treatment strategies for one of the most aggressive and deadly forms of cancer.
“Between 2020-21, 471 oncologists from 91 large cancer centers in the United States came in contact.”
Pancreatic cancer has among the lowest survival rates and few effective treatments. While immunotherapy has converted the landscape of treatment for several other cancers, it generally offers little benefit for pancreatic cancer. However, this study highlights a small but important group of patients who have developed significant and prolonged reactions to the treatment based on the immune system without chemotherapy. Most had advanced or metastatic disease and had already advanced after standardized treatments.
Among the 14 patients, 82% had partial tumor shrinkage and almost one -third had a remarkable decrease in indicators. The average survival without evolution was 12 months and most patients were still alive during follow -up, with 80% survival rates in one year and 70% in two years. These results are abruptly contrasting with standard treatments, which often provide only a few months of benefits for similar patients.
Interestingly, while some patients had a high volatility of micro-derogatory (MSI-high)-a well-known indicator for the success of immunotherapy-more than half, suggesting that other biological mechanisms may be involved. This result emphasizes the need to discover new biomarkers to predict the response to the treatment to future studies.
This series of cases is the largest focused exclusively on excellent correspondents of pancreatic cancer. Excluding patients receiving chemotherapy, the study isolates the effects of immunological drugs, including PD-1 inhibitors such as pembrolizumab and nivolumab, CTLA-4 inhibitors such as ipilimumab and macrophage targeting factors.
While the sample size is small, the findings cause the assumption that immunotherapy is ineffective for almost all patients with pancreatic cancer. The study suggests that, under certain biological conditions, this treatment can be extremely successful. Further research is needed to understand underlying mechanisms.
This project supports the need to review how clinical trials are designed for pancreatic cancer and who is eligible for immunotherapy. The broader criteria and the most personalized molecular profile could help reveal hidden opportunities for treatment in this extremely deadly cancer.
Source:
Magazine report:
Sugumar, K., et al. (2025). Excellent correspondents in pancreatic cancer immunotherapy: a series of multinational cases of a rare incident. Tumult. Doi.org/10.18632/oncotarget.28739.
