A Study of the Effect of Gemcitabine With Fish Oil in Patients With Advanced Pancreatic Cancer

Brief summary public domain (ClinicalTrials.gov)

Over 7000 patients are diagnosed with pancreas cancer every year in the UK. Only 10% have it caught early enough to have surgery to cure it. The rest at best can undergo chemotherapy to extend survival, but current treatments offer at best an improvement of only a few months compared to no treatment at all. In addition only about a quarter of patients will respond to the treatment. In addition these patients often experience profound weight loss, loss of appetite and energy primarily because of the cancer process itself. Our hypothesis is that the addition of fish oil infusion to gemcitabine chemotherapy will result in an improved rate of tumour response on CT imaging. Fish oils, or specifically the omega-3 fatty acid component, appear to have a range of powerful anti-cancer actions. This is supported by evidence from a wide range of sources, from laboratory experiments to basic human studies. Although this evidence specifically includes many pancreatic cancer studies in the laboratory it has not yet been confirmed in human trials. Contrary to conventional chemotherapy, fish oil is a naturally occuring non-toxic compound and so is not associated with the side-effects of chemotherapy. In fact a number of clinical studies have demonstrated significant improvements in quality of life for pancreas cancer patients treated with fish oil, particularly with reference to improvements in appetite and energy levels. This is of course in addition to the anti-cancer actions.

Detailed description public domain (ClinicalTrials.gov)

Our trial will involve recruiting patients who have unresectable pancreatic cancer and who are suitable for the current standard of care which is gemcitabine chemotherapy. They will be assessed for suitability and then offered entry into the trial. This essentially consists of a 4 hour long infusion of purified omega-3 fish oil immediately after their gemcitabine chemotherapy has finished. This will occur once a week for three weeks, with a rest on the fourth week. The cycle then continues until the cancer has shown progression on a CT scan, the gemcitabine chemotherapy is stopped due to toxicity or the patient withdraws or dies. CT scans to assess this are performed every 2 months. Blood tests will be taken before and after each treatment and analysed for changes in inflammatory markers. The patients will be asked to fill in a quality of life and pain questionnaire each week during the 4 hour infusion.