According to the CDC, each year about 44,000 cases of pancreatic cancer are diagnosed, and there is only a 20% survival chance for patients who are sick for over a year. It drops to a 14% survival rate after five years, and the current drug on the market for treatment, Gemzar, doesn't do much to combat the cancer. It's rather ineffective, and Vice Chairman of Research at the CDC, Ashok Saluja, even said, "It adds six weeks- it's nothing." There has been a need for a more effective drug treatment, and researchers think that the answer may be a drug made from a plant called "Thunder God Vine." The plant is commonly used in traditional Chinese medicine for rheumatoid arthritis. In a study conducted among lab mice with pancreatic cancer, after 40 days of treatment with the drug they showed no signs of tumors. Thunder God Vine, or its technical name Tripterygium wilfordii, contains the compound triptolide, which has shown to kill cancer cells in previous studies. Although there is no guarantee whatsoever that the plant will be effective in combating pancreatic cancer in humans, researchers hope to soon begin the first three stages of human clinical trials necessary before being approved by the Food and Drug Administration, and hopefully the results from the trials are successful.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-17/drug-from-chinese-thunder-god-vine-slays-tumors-in-mice.html
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