Experts at Sheba Medical Center in Israel have developed a new radiation treatment that significantly reduces the severe pain caused by pancreatic cancer by targeting the celiac plexus nerve, offering patients less suffering while undergoing life-saving treatments, and has now been included in the new American guidelines for treating this aggressive disease.

Pancreatic cancer, which also causes patients to endure severe pain, is one of the deadliest malignant diseases, leading to high mortality rates within months of often too-late diagnosis. Experts at Sheba Medical Center have developed a new method to ease the pain patients experience during aggressive treatments aimed at saving their lives. The development was published in the latest issue of The Lancet medical journal.

Severe pain is a characteristic of pancreatic cancer because the pancreas is very close to a central nerve called the celiac plexus. Pancreatic tumors tend to press on or infiltrate this nerve, causing very intense pain. This pain causes significant suffering to patients, affecting their daily routines and quality of life.

Experts at Sheba Medical Center developed a new high-dose radiation treatment for pancreatic cancer pain, now included in US guidelines.

 

Until now, standard treatments for this pain included pain medications or, in severe cases where the pain was resistant to drugs, invasive treatment - injecting anesthetic substances directly into the celiac plexus nerve and disabling it (Celiac Block).

The new research, which began in recent years, is led by the head of the Radiation Institute at Sheba Medical Center, Dr. Jacob Lawrence, and is in collaboration with the Israel Cancer Association and other researchers. The study examined a treatment method of a single radiation session using high-dose X-rays directly to the nerve involved in severe pain.

Click to continue reading. The Jerusalem Post