A Preliminary Report: Radical Surgery and Stem Cell Transplantation for the Treatment of Patients With Pancreatic Cancer

We examined the immunologic effects of allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) in the treatment of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, a deadly disease with a median survival of 24 months for resected tumors and a 5-year survival rate of 6%. After adjuvant chemotherapy, 2 patients with resected pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma underwent HSCT with HLA-identical sibling donors. Comparable patients who underwent radical surgery, but did not have a donor, served as controls (n=6). Both patients developed humoral and cellular (ie, HLA-A*01:01-restricted) immune responses directed against 2 novel tumor-associated antigens (TAAs), INO80E and UCLH3 after HSCT. Both TAAs were highly expressed in the original tumor tissue suggesting that HSCT promoted a clinically relevant, long-lasting cellular immune response. In contrast to untreated controls, who succumbed to progressive disease, both patients are tumor-free 9 years after diagnosis. Radical surgery combined with HSCT may cure pancreatic adenocarcinoma and change the cellular immune repertoire capable of responding to clinically and biologically relevant TAAs.