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10 slides generated from the cancer page, with a quiz from the open benchmark and speaker notes that cite the sources. Arrow keys move between slides; Print gives one slide per page.
KRAS G12C pancreatic cancer is the small slice of pancreatic cancer whose KRAS mutation happens to be the one that the first KRAS drugs were built for. Sotorasib and adagrasib, approved for lung cancer, shrink a share of these tumours after chemotherapy and are listed as options, and newer inhibitors such as elironrasib, olomorasib and the pan-RAS drug daraxonrasib are being tested in this group.
KRAS is mutated in more than nine out of ten pancreatic ductal adenocarcinomas, but the covalent inhibitors that reached the clinic first bind only the cysteine of the G12C variant, which is rare in the pancreas. The G12C subgroup otherwise resembles other KRAS-mutant pancreatic cancers in its presentation, its TP53, CDKN2A and SMAD4 co-alterations and its response to chemotherapy; it is found only by tumour or plasma sequencing, which is why guidelines ask for it at diagnosis in advanced disease.
Sotorasib in the pancreatic cohort of CodeBreaK 100 (2023) and adagrasib in KRYSTAL-1 (2023) produced responses in a minority of previously treated patients with disease control in most, durable for some months. Both are NCCN-listed options after first-line chemotherapy and are used off label or through access schemes, since neither has a pancreatic indication. Resistance arises through secondary KRAS mutations, amplification and bypass through receptor tyrosine kinases, and pancreatic tumours appear to depend more on wild-type RAS and on EGFR-family signalling than lung tumours do, which is the rationale for combining G12C inhibitors with EGFR antibodies or with pan-RAS drugs.
| Setting | Approach | Guideline |
|---|---|---|
| First line | Chemotherapy as for other pancreatic adenocarcinoma: modified FOLFIRINOX, NALIRIFOX or gemcitabine plus nab-paclitaxel; G12C inhibitors are not approved first line. | not mapped |
| After first-line chemotherapy | Daraxonrasib (RASolute 302, approved for pancreatic cancer irrespective of KRAS subtype); sotorasib or adagrasib as NCCN-listed options on the CodeBreaK 100 and KRYSTAL-1 cohorts. | not mapped |
| Clinical trials | Elironrasib with daraxonrasib, olomorasib, glecirasib and other G12C-selective inhibitors alone or with chemotherapy or EGFR antibodies. | not mapped |