JERUSALEM, July 23 -- Israeli researchers developed and successfully tested a radiation therapy to significantly reduce severe pain in pancreatic cancer patients and improve their quality of life, the Israel Cancer Association said in a statement on Tuesday.

Pancreatic cancer is characterized by intense pain due to the proximity of the pancreas to the celiac plexus, a main nerve cluster, and pancreatic tumors tend to press on or penetrate this nerve bundle.

Common treatments for the pain include drugs that often have severe side effects, or, in more resistant cases, the injection of anesthetics directly into the celiac plexus.

The new non-invasive treatment involves a one-time irradiation of X-rays directly to the celiac plexus, rather than to the tumor. The method was tested in eight hospitals in the United States, Canada, Poland, Portugal, and Israel, in a study led by Israel's Sheba Medical Center and published in Lancet Oncology.

Of 90 pancreatic cancer subjects, 48 patients, or 53 percent reported a significant decrease in pain and a notable improvement in their quality of life.

Additionally, side effects among the participants were few and not serious, mainly fatigue and mild nausea on the day of treatment.

The average five-year survival rate of patients diagnosed with pancreatic cancer is less than 10 percent, making it one of the most lethal types of cancer.

Around 80 percent of pancreatic cancer cases are detected at an advanced and inoperable stage.

The researchers noted that the new method could potentially be used in patients with other types of cancer as well.

  - Xinhua