I am Robert Duran, a Four-times Stage IV, Metastatic Pancreatic Cancer Survivor. My cancer is the most lethal of all major cancers with a 6% survival rate when I was diagnosed.
In July 2022, I underwent a cutting edge CAR T-cell therapy where I received an infusion of my own re-engineered T-cells specifically designed to hunt down and kill the cancer cells in my body.
Scientists re-engineered the DNA of my T-cells so that they would recognize my cancer cells and then grew the new cancer killer cells into the billions in the lab. Afterwards, the T-cells were infused back into my body, where we hope they will attack the cancerous cells and destroy them. I am one of the first patients in the United States to receive anti-claudin18.2 CAR T-cells for pancreatic cancer as part of a clinical trial.
Since 2014, I lived with an enemy determined to take my life: pancreatic cancer - aka "The King of all Cancers". As a result, I underwent multiple surgeries, different types of chemo treatments including Hyperthermic Intraperitoneal Chemotherapy (HIPEC), radiation, several clinical trails and taken off label targeted immunotherapy drugs, but the cancer keeps recurring.
Unfortunately, the cancer returned in September 2021 and I went back on chemo (Abraxane) along with a daily oral checkpoint inhibitor (Ibrance).
For the past eleven months, there has been no signs of progression of the cancer in my lung and liver, but cancer can turn on a dime and chemo is NOT a cure. For many patients, the side effects of chemo can be much worse than the cancer itself.
I've been able to undergo chemotherapy and surgeries for all of my recurrences since 2014. However, there are life threatening toxicity concerns and side effects with chemotherapy and surgery.
In fact, chemotherapy, the go-to Standard of Care treatment method for the treatment of pancreatic has remained unchanged the past few decades and is NOT a cure. Therefore, I always knew that ever since I was diagnosed, I had to fight. Above all, I had to keep the ball moving forward to get another set of first downs in order stay alive because every day, researchers and scientists develop more advanced treatment methods that could possibly cure cancer.
As a result of my effort to stay alive, I was offered a new cutting edge therapy:
So I made a decision to stop the chemotherapy that has kept me alive in order to participate in a clinical trial to help scientist and researchers cure the incurable. The risk however, is disease progression.
If this trial is successful and receives FDA approval, CAR T-therapy could be offered as Standard of Care to ALL cancer patients. Imagine a world treating in which all cancer patients thrive - we are getting close!
Will CAR T therapy work for a solid tumor cancer?
Will CAR T 'cure' my cancer?
My Story
