Vitamin D drug may help crack pancreatic cancer’s protective shield

A small clinical trial led by researchers at Dana Farber Cancer Institute has tested a treatment strategy that began with laboratory discoveries at the Salk Institute. The idea is to activate the vitamin D receptor and, in doing so, alter the protective environment surrounding pancreatic tumors. That change could potentially make this notoriously difficult cancer more vulnerable to existing treatments.

The study, published in Nature Cancer , included patients with previously untreated metastatic pancreatic cancer. Participants received standard chemotherapy either alone or in combination with paricalcitol, a vitamin D analog already approved by the FDA for other medical uses.

Whether paricalcitol was given by mouth or intravenously, researchers found that it could be combined safely with chemotherapy overall. The drug also reduced the activation of fibroblasts in the tumor microenvironment, providing evidence in patients that supported earlier findings from Salk laboratory studies.