Pancreatic cancer treatment in people with BRCA mutations
About 10% of pancreatic cancer is caused by an inherited mutation in BRCA1 or BRCA2. Other genetic mutations have been linked to increased risk of pancreatic cancer. These include:
Research is ongoing about the link between other genes and pancreatic cancer. These include:
Knowing if you have an inherited mutation is increasingly important for pancreatic cancer patients when making treatment decisions. For example, BRCA-associated cancers may respond better to certain treatments, including a treatment regimen that includes a type of chemotherapy known as platinum. Oxaliplatin is a platinum-containing drug used in some pancreatic cancer regimens.
Knowing whether or not you have a mutation in BRCA1 or BRCA2 can affect the decision to use oxaliplatin or other platinum drug in the initial chemotherapy regimen to treat your pancreatic cancer. People who carry a Lynch syndrome mutation are more likely to have a tumor biomarker called MSI-High. These tumors tend to respond well to the immunotherapy agent pembrolizumab (Keytruda).
Some clinical trials are using PARP inhibitors and other new therapies to treat patients with hereditary pancreatic cancer.
Updated 08/21/2019
