PHY906 in Pancreatic Cancer

Parallel to primary liver cancer (hepatocellular carcinoma), pancreatic cancer in the U.S. is less common but its mortality rate is one of the highest of all the cancers. Gemcitabine is currently the only FDA-approved chemotherapeutic for this disease. However, the response rate to gemcitabine is only 6-11% and the overall survival time of pancreatic cancer patients is 4-6 months. An improved alternative to gemcitabine alone has yet to be discovered.

The results from PhytoCeutica’s mouse xenograft research indicate that PHY906, when used with gemcitabine alone or with gemcitbine + oxaliplatin, not only retards the progress of the pancreatic tumor, it also reduces the tumor’s size (Figure 1).

Figure 1. PHY906 Enhances Anticancer Activities of Chemotherapeutic Agents

PHY906 significantly reduced the tumor size concomitant with gemcitabine in PAN02 pancreatic cancer bearing BDF mice within the first week drug treatment. The results also indicated that the potentiation of PHY906 in antitumor activity of gemcitabine is obvious in our pancreatic cancer models (p<0.001).