This, from a disease where typically three percent of patients are alive five years after being diagnosed, according to the American Cancer Society. Is it just TV hype?

I think that the positive response that has been achieved here does happen in patients, says Allyson Ocean, MD, medical oncologist at New York-Presbyterian and Weill Cornell Medicine. Id have to say its not so common to see tumor shrinkage like that, but we are seeing this more and more with the chemotherapy regimens that have been developed over the past decade.

Its hard to know without being on his medical team, she says. There are certain tumors that respond better to certain chemotherapies than otherssome tend to respond well to a standard chemotherapy thats given for pancreatic cancer, she says. Response to treatment depends on many things, including how healthy a person is going into treatment, and whats going on inside the tumor-something docs can now tease out something about, and tailor treatment accordingly, thanks to DNA tests that can be done on that tumor.

This highlights the point that every patient with pancreatic cancer should undergo genetic testing of their blood and the tumor, Dr. Ocean says. Theres a sentiment of resignation among some doctors who dont treat pancreatic cancer that often. It blows my mind that a decent percentage of people arent even offered treatment for metastatic disease. But we know that chemotherapy extends survival and makes people feel better.

One of the many challenges with pancreatic cancer is that it doesnt cause symptoms early on, and there arent routine screening tests yet, so its usually detected and diagnosed at a very late, harder-to-treat stage. We still have a huge way to go, says Dr. Ocean. But through clinical trials, the development of screening tests, and new drugs on the horizon, we are making strides.