OMAHA, Neb. (KMTV) — Omaha doctors at Nebraska Medicine are testing a new device for delivering chemotherapy directly into pancreatic tumors. A method that might improve quality of life and lifespan for patients.
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The catheter, still in the trial stage, targets the tumor rather than sending chemotherapy throughout the entire body — an approach that medical oncologist Dr. Kelsey Klute says is easy for patients to understand.
"Its not abstract like when we talk about some of the ways our medicines work. It's like 'Oh, you're going to go into my body and you're going to delivery this chemo directly to the place where the problem is,'" Klute said.
The catheter was developed by Dr. Ramtin Agah and his company, RenovoRX. Agah says the targeted approach means the drug isn't being sent to organs that don't need the chemo.
"So, you get high concentration of the drug into the tumor and less concentration of the drug everywhere else," he said.
He also says concentrating the drug so that it is not delivered through the whole body may also mean a better quality of life for patients. Agah says he chose to focus on pancreatic cancer, in part, because he saw a need.
"Because the prognosis is so poor we need to have better approaches," he said.
In July Nebraska Medicine introduced a new pancreas cancer drug showing some success — including as a medication used to treat former Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse. Klute agrees there's been a great spotlight on the disease lately.
"I think some of it is just coincidence, but it's an exciting time to be working in pancreas cancer because I do think we are going to see changes in how our patients do compared to what we've seen in the last 10 years," Klute said.
Klute says researchers will need to wait until 2027 for more data on the trial, but early results show promise.
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