A new UCLA investigator-initiated study has found that adding immunotherapy to standard chemotherapy before surgery is safe and shows promise for some patients with borderline-resectable pancreatic cancer, a disease that has historically been difficult to treat.

The findings, published in Nature Communications, show that while the combination did not produce a clear survival advantage for most patients, a notable subset experienced unusually deep and durable responses. It also helped some patients live long enough to reach surgery, shrank tumors and produced encouraging survival outcomes.

The study also revealed immune changes that may limit how well immunotherapy works in pancreatic cancer, offering important clues for how future treatment strategies could be refined to further improve patient outcomes.