Pancreatic Cancer Compassionate Access Program

Created to make more treatments available to more patients, GenesisCare Foundation’s Compassionate Access Program is now available across the country to suitable patients with inoperable advanced or recurrent pancreatic cancer. The program provides treatment at minimal or no cost to patients at GenesisCare’s St Vincent’s Hospital Sydney or GenesisCare St John of God Murdoch.

In addition to ensuring more patients can access MR-Linac treatment to target pancreatic cancer, the program also has a research component, generating Australian real-world data to further develop the evidence base for this innovative radiation therapy.1

The MR-Linac technology allows clinicians to visualise the tumour during treatment and adapt to changes in tumour size and location. This is particularly important for patients with complex cancers such as pancreatic cancer, as the pancreas is situated close to major organs which can move, and if damaged, lead to severe side effects.

Current data has highlighted the effectiveness of this type of radiation therapy in extending survival in inoperable pancreatic patients.

Results showed that the average survival of patients was 26 months, compared to 12-15 months typically seen in patients receiving chemotherapy and standard radiation therapy. Similar results have been reported by GenesisCare and the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom.3

Learn more about the MR-Linac technology here.

Pancreatic cancer is the eighth most common cancer in Australia, with more than 4,000 people diagnosed in 2021.1 It is also one of the hardest cancers to treat – only 3 out of 10 patients with pancreatic cancer will survive one year after diagnosis, and the Australian five-year survival rate for pancreatic cancer is just 11.5%.2

Funded in part by generous public donors, the GenesisCare Foundation is an independent health promotion charity born from the philanthropic vision of GenesisCare. Its mission is to seek out and support life-changing improvements in cancer care, to create profound impact at scale for both individuals and communities. It does so by investing in research that has the power to radically improve patient outcomes and by enabling access to innovative care.

1. De Leon, J et al. Clin. Transl. Radiat Oncol., 2021; Vol 31, p64-70.
2. Chuong MD, Bryant J, Mittauer KE, Hall M, Kotecha R, Alvarez D, Romaguera T, Rubens M, Adamson S, Godley A, Mishra V, Luciani G, Gutierrez AN. Ablative 5-Fraction Stereotactic Magnetic Resonance-Guided Radiation Therapy With On-Table Adaptive Replanning and Elective Nodal Irradiation for Inoperable Pancreas Cancer. Pract Radiat Oncol. 2021 Mar-Apr;11(2):134-147. doi: 10.1016/j.prro.2020.09.005. Epub 2020 Sep 16. Erratum in: Pract Radiat Oncol. 2021 May-Jun;11(3):e354. PMID: 32947042.
3. Good, J et al. Feasibility and Safety of daily adapted MR-guided SABR for pancreatic cancer in the UK, ESTRO 2022, viewed May 2022
4. https://www.canceraustralia.gov.au/cancer-types/pancreatic-cancer/statistics
5. https://pankind.org.au/about-pancreatic-cancer/statistics/#:~:text=In%202021%2C%20it%20is%20estimated%20pancreatic%20cancer%20will%20be%20the,with%20pancreatic%20cancer%20(1)
6.  https://www.genesiscare.com/au/clinical-trial/adapt-mrl/
7.  https://www.genesiscare.com/au/treatment/cancer/radiation-therapy/mr-linac/ – firstLevel=476&secondLevel=50