Policlinico Gemelli tests radioactive glue to shrink pancreatic tumors

A 63-year-old woman with a locally advanced pancreatic cancer underwent the world’s first treatment using a radioactive glue at Rome’s Policlinico Gemelli. The procedure marks the launch of an international clinical trial testing whether localized beta radiation can shrink tumors that are currently too dangerous to operate on.

The Diagnostic Delay and Low Resectability Rate of Pancreatic Cancer

Pancreatic cancer remains exceptionally difficult to treat primarily because early symptoms are frequently vague and easily mistaken for common digestive disorders. According to the sources, the disease is regularly discovered only after it has reached an advanced stage. In Italy, thousands of new cases emerge annually, carrying a five-year survival rate between 5% and 12% depending on the diagnostic stage and treatment type. Only 10% to 15% of individuals receive a diagnosis while the tumor is still considered operable.

When the malignancy is classified as locally advanced, abnormal tissue growth remains confined to the pancreas and adjacent structures without distant metastases, yet it heavily involves vital blood vessels. This vascular involvement prevents safe surgical resection. Systemic chemotherapy serves as the primary standard of care for these non-operable cases, occasionally functioning as a neoadiuvante approach to shrink the mass. However, successful downstaging to an operable state occurs in only a small minority of patients, leaving local disease progression as a persistent clinical barrier.

How the YntraDose Radioactive Glue Procedure Works

To overcome the limitations of systemic therapies in localized disease, investigators developed a specialized delivery system designed to concentrate radiation directly within the tumor mass. reported that the experimental device, known as YntraDose, combines an adhesive biological gel matrix with yttrium-90 microspheres that emit beta radiation. Interventional radiologists execute the minimally invasive procedure by inserting a thin needle through the abdominal wall under imaging guidance from computed tomography or ultrasound, depositing a precisely calibrated dose directly into the lesion.

The Gemelli intervention involved a patient with ductal adenocarcinoma of the pancreas. Professor Roberto Iezzi, director of Interventional Radiology at Fondazione Policlinico Gemelli, performed the one-hour procedure under local anesthesia with minimal sedation. Post-procedural evaluations via PET-CT scans at 24 hours and seven days confirmed the targeted retention of the radiopharmaceutical within the pancreas, showing no unintended dispersion or stray radioactive accumulation.

Rome Marks First Patient Enrollment in International Trial

The procedure performed in Rome represents the first patient enrollment in an international, multicenter Phase 2 clinical trial involving research centers in Italy, Belgium, and Great Britain. Professor Giampaolo Tortora, director of the Comprehensive Cancer Center at Fondazione Policlinico Gemelli, serves as the principal investigator for the study, directing a multidisciplinary team of interventional radiologists, nuclear medicine physicians, medical physicists, and radiation oncologists. Patient enrollment remains active, with additional procedures scheduled.

While investigators emphasize that classifying the experimental intervention as an established cure is premature, the initial application was completed without post-operative complications. The ongoing trial aims to determine whether combining this targeted percutaneous ablation with standard chemotherapy can achieve superior local tumor control and eventually convert non-operable masses into surgically resectable ones.

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