"Celgenes drug Abraxane prolonged the lives of patients with advanced pancreatic cancer by almost two months in a clinical trial researchers reported Tuesday signifying an advance in treating a notoriously difficult disease but not as big a leap as some doctors and investors had hoped. It was not the breakthrough we were anticipating said Dr. Andrea WangGillam an assistant professor and pancreatic cancer specialist at Washington University in St. Louis who was not involved in the trial.  Still Dr. WangGillam and others said any progress was welcome against metastatic pancreatic cancer which has defied most treatments with patients tending to live only about six months after diagnosis.  Pancreatic cancer is the fourth most common cause of cancer death with  Americans expected to die this year almost as many deaths as from breast cancer according to the American Cancer Society. Yet there are only  new cases of pancreatic cancer a year compared with more than  new breast cancer cases.   This is a disease that gave oncology a bad name said Dr. Robert Mayer a professor at Harvard and the DanaFarber Cancer Institute in Boston who was not involved in the study. Now he said Abraxane as well as another treatment combining four generic drugs are showing some promise. In Celgenes trial patients who received Abraxane plus gemcitabine the standard drug for pancreatic cancer lived a median of . months compared with . months for those who received gemcitabine alone.  At the end of one year  percent of those getting Abraxane were alive compared with  percent of those getting only gemcitabine. After two years the figures were  percent for those getting Abraxane and  percent for those who received gemcitabine.  The results of the study which involved  patients were released by Celgene and by the American Society of Clinincal Oncology in advance of a presentation of the data Friday at the Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium in San Francisco.  The results were roughly in line with investors expectations according to a recent survey by ISI Group. Celgenes stock closed at . on Tuesday and moved slightly lower in afterhours trading. The study results were released after the close of trading.  Abraxane is a novel form of the widely used cancer drug paclitaxel also known by the brand name Taxol. In Abraxane the paclitaxel is bound to albumin a human protein in tiny particles. That is said to enhance delivery of the drug to tumors and reduce side effects.  Abraxane was approved to treat advanced breast cancer in  and to treat nonsmallcell lung cancer in October. Sales in the first nine months of  were  million a small percentage of Celgenes revenues of . billion in that period much of it from the multiple myeloma drug Revlimid.  Abraxane was developed by Abraxis BioScience which Celgene acquired for . billion in . Abraxis stockholders also received a security entitling them to additional cash payments if Abraxane won approval for pancreatic cancer. Celgene said Tuesday it would apply for such approval in the first half of this year.  A big impediment to future Abraxane sales in pancreatic cancer could be that its median survival was almost three months less than that of Folfirinox a combination of four generic cancer drugs.  Results of a clinical trial published in  showed that pancreatic cancer patients getting Folfirinox had a median survival of . months compared with . months for those getting gemcitabine.  Experts cautioned that it was difficult to draw conclusions since Abraxane and Folfirinox were not compared directly in the same trial. Nonetheless doctors are going to make treatment decisions based on the separate results.  Abraxane which Celgene says will cost  to  a month for a pancreatic cancer patients is likely to be more expensive than Folfirinox. However Folfirinox is hard to tolerate and requires the patient to wear an infusion pump.  The simplicity of Abraxane plus gemcitabine may be attractive to physicians and patients said Dr. Neal J. Meropol chief of hematology and oncology at University Hospitals and Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. Abraxane does cause low white blood cell counts and nerve damage.  How much of an extension of life is meaningful to patients is a matter of some debate especially with cancer drugs costing thousands of dollars a month.  In  the Food and Drug Administration approved Tarceva now sold by Roche and Astellas to treat pancreatic cancer. In a clinical trial those who got Tarceva plus gemcitabine had a median survival only  days longer than those who received a placebo plus gemcitabine."