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Has anyone heard of experimental treatment for terminal esophageal cancer which has spread to the liver?


Has anyone heard of experimental treatment for terminal esophageal cancer which has spread to the liver?

Check the info at the site below, if anything has the answer it does.

Look in the "clinical trial" portion of the NIH pub med website, lower left of screen.

Concerned about gridlock? Google "Hallitubes" and write us what you think: hallitubevolunteer1@yahoo.com

When esophageal cancer is localized to the esophagus and has not spread elsewhere (metastasized), surgery is the treatment of choice. The goal of surgery, in most cases, is to cure the patient. In some circumstances chemotherapy, radiation, or a combination of the two will be used to make surgery easier to perform.

In patients who cannot tolerate surgery, or in situations where the cancer has spread to other organs (metastatic disease), chemotherapy or radiation may be used to help alleviate symptoms (palliative therapy). In such circumstances, however, the disease is usually not curable.

Other treatments that may be used to improve a patient's ability to swallow include endoscopic dilation of the esophagus (sometimes with placement of a stent) or photodynamic therapy.Doctors and scientists at the Duke Gastrointestinal Cancers Program are at the forefront of the quest to develop new treatments and cures for GI cancers and side effects of treatment. For example:

Duke physicians are leading the way in defining the role of pre-operative chemotherapy and radiation treatment to shrink tumors of the stomach, pancreas, and rectum before surgery.
Investigators at Duke are developing dendritic cell-based vaccines for pancreatic and colorectal cancers. Dendritic cells are immune cells that take a leadership role in the body, so if scientists can get these cells to fight cancer, other cells will follow. Scientists are infusing these dendritic cells with tumor antigens and reinfusing them in the body to get them to lead the battle against cancer. Read a News Release on Dendritic Cell Vaccines.
Duke was the lead center for a national clinical trial on an experimental cancer drug called bevacizumab (trade name Avastin), the first "anti-angiogenesis" drug to prove that it can shrink tumors and extend survival in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer. Bevacizumab blocks the formation of blood vessels in tumors (a process called angiogenesis) and thus inhibits their growth. Patients who received bevacizumab together with standard chemotherapy survived a median of five months longer than patients who received standard chemotherapy alone, a significant life extension given that patients with newly diagnosed colorectal cancer survive an average of 15 to 17 months. This has become the standard of care treatment for first line colon cancer. New studies are now underway at Duke to improve upon this treatment. Read a News Release on a Tumor Shrinking Drug.
Duke researchers have identified a protein called periostin that enables colon cancer to flourish and thrive once it has spread or "metastasized" to the liver. This protein could be a potential target for blocking the growth of metastatic colon cancers. Read a News Release on a Booster Protein.
Researchers at Duke have developed a novel radiation therapy for treating rectal cancer that uses VEGF and EGF inhibitors as radiosensitizers.

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