Extracorporeal blood filtration leading to tumor growth arrest and reduced analgesic requirements in Stage IV poorly differentiated pancreatic adenocarcinoma: A case report

TL;DR

A patient with advanced pancreatic cancer showed stable disease and less pain after undergoing blood filtration to remove cancer cells.

Contribution

Demonstrates potential clinical benefits of extracorporeal blood filtration for CTC removal in metastatic cancer.

Findings

The patient experienced stable disease with no new metastases after 12 months of treatment.

Significant clinical improvement and reduced analgesic requirements were reported.

Extracorporeal blood filtration may offer therapeutic benefits for metastatic solid tumors.

Abstract

Background: Despite significant strides in the management of metastatic solid tumors over the past few decades, metastatic disease remains a major clinical challenge, often leading to unfavorable patient outcomes. Circulating tumor cells (CTCs), which shed from the primary tumor, have the potential to disseminate and establish distant metastases, contributing to disease progression and reduced survival rates. Removal of CTCs via extracorporeal blood filtration could have significant therapeutic implications.

Case: A 51-year-old woman was diagnosed with metastatic poorly differentiated adenocarcinoma after presenting with severe abdominal pain. She deferred conventional chemotherapy options and elected treatment with CTC removal using an extracorporeal blood filter. After 9–12 filtration sessions of treatment over 12 months, she reported significant clinical improvement and staging scans demonstrated stable disease without evidence of new metastases.

Conclusion: Therapeutic modalities that explore CTC removal via blood filtration may potentially have promising clinical benefits. More prospective studies are required to determine the utility of this therapeutic strategy in patients with metastatic solid tumors. Our patient demonstrated significant clinical improvement with scans demonstrating stable disease.

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