Electrical Current to Help Relieve Jaundice
Can a technique to destroy tumor tissue using electrical current help relieve jaundice in cancer patients with bile ducts blocked by tumors that cannot be removed surgically?
Pancreatic cancer patients often have jaundice caused by a tumor blocking the bile duct. The standard treatment is to put in a tube called a stent, to open the duct. However, stents have only limited effectiveness. A clinical trial is comparing whether using a technique called radiofrequency ablation along with a stent is more effective than just putting in a stent for pancreatic cancer and bile duct cancer patients with tumors that cannot be surgically removed.
What is Radiofrequency Ablation?
Radiofrequency ablation (RFA) uses the heat from a medium frequency electrical current to destroy the tumor tissue. It is usually done with local anesthesia in an outpatient facility.
Trial Details
In this clinical trial, participants will be randomly assigned to receive either just a stent, or a stent plus RFA. Researchers are looking to see whether the stent remains open for a longer time with the addition of RFA. The potential of RFA as a treatment for tumors that may be removable is a longer-term consideration.
We encourage you to consult your physicians for clinical trials that may be right for you. The website ClinicalTrials.gov provides more details about this trial as well as many others. You can visit the Let’s Win Trial Finder for a listing of all active pancreatic cancer clinical trials.
This trial was terminated because enrollment was feasibly not going to be reached.
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