Clinical Research Directory

Endoscopic Ultrasound-Guided Chemoablation for the Treatment of Pancreatic Cystic Neoplasms

This phase II trial tests the effect of endoscopic ultrasound (EUS)-guided chemoablation in treating patients with pancreatic cysts. Pancreatic cancer is a fatal disease that is difficult to diagnose at an early stage, and the five-year survival rate is currently less than 10%. Pancreatic cysts are a common precancerous lesion that may develop into pancreatic cancer. An EUS is a procedure in which an endoscope is inserted into the body. An endoscope is a thin, tube-like instrument that has a light and a lens for viewing. A probe at the end of the endoscope is used to bounce high-energy sound waves (ultrasound) off internal organs to make a picture (sonogram). EUS-guided chemoablation uses a fine needle inserted into the pancreatic cyst to deliver chemotherapy, such as gemcitabine and paclitaxel, directly into the cyst ("intracystic"). Gemcitabine is a chemotherapy drug that blocks the cells from making DNA and may kill tumor cells. Paclitaxel is in a class of medications called antimicrotubule agents. It stops tumor cells from growing and dividing and may kill them. An EUS-guided chemoablation, with gemcitabine and paclitaxel, may be an effective minimally invasive strategy to destroy abnormal or precancerous cells while reducing exposure to the rest of the body in patients with pancreatic cysts.

Artificial Intelligence-based Early Screening of Pancreatic Cancer and High Risk Tracing (ESPRIT-AI)

Pancreatic cancer is one of the most fatal malignancies with a 5-year survival rate of only \~6%\[1\]. The reasons for this high mortality rate can be attributed to several factors, of which perhaps the most important is delayed diagnosis due to vague symptoms and consequently missed opportunities for surgical resection. Therefore, the ability to detect pancreatic cancer at an early, more curable stage is urgently needed. Identifying risk factors and biomarkers of early pancreatic cancer could facilitate screening for individuals at higher than average risk and expedite the diagnosis in individuals with symptoms and substantially improve an individual's chance of surviving the disease. Thus, the investigators propose this longitudinal study entitled, "Artificial Intelligence-based Early Screening of Pancreatic Cancer and High Risk Tracing (ESPRIT-AI)" in order to generate clinical data sets and bank serial blood specimens of high risk individuals.