Researchers conduct clinical trials with vitamin D to treat cancer

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- Daryl Fair, 76, retired from teaching American politics to travel and spend time with his family. But earlier this year, doctors treating him for pneumonia discovered something else.

"It was a small tumor on the head of the pancreas," he said.

Doctors caught Daryl's cancer early, which is unusual for pancreatic cancer. Patients often have no early symptoms. Because Fair caught it early enough, he qualified for a clinical trial to test the impact of vitamin D on treatment.

"This is not vitamin D that you can get at the drugstore," said Dr. Jeffrey Drebin, chair of the department of surgery at Penn Medicine.

Researchers found that the potent vitamin D inactivates the body's cells called stromal cells, which protect and feed pancreatic tumors.

If the stromal cells are not working, researchers said chemotherapy drugs will reach the tumors and hopefully wipe out the cancer.

For now, patients are receiving vitamin D three times a week.

"To get the levels, the high levels that we think we need within the tumor, we're giving it IV as the initial trial of this," said Dr. Peter O'Dwyer, professor of medicine at Penn Medicine.

Fair said he thinks clinical studies such as the one he is a part of will one day make cancer curable, and it brings hope to patients fighting a tough battle.

Researchers said they would like to develop an oral form of the synthetic vitamin D so that patients in future trials could have the treatment at home. Researchers also said the results of the trial may impact treatment for other stubborn tumors.