Thriving with Pancreatic Cancer: Silver Darmer

Silver Darmer, 79, was initially diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2016. For a while, surgery and chemotherapy worked. But two years later, the cancer returned. This time, it metastasized to his lungs. Darmer was diagnosed with Stage 4 metastatic pancreatic cancer, which has a five-year survival rate of around 3%. With conventional treatments no longer working, Darmer was ready to try something new. In October 2022, he met with Rachna Shroff, MD, interim clinical affairs director at the UArizona Cancer Center and professor and chief of the Division of Hematology and Oncology at the UArizona College of Medicine - Tucson’s Department of Medicine, to discuss becoming a participant in one of her clinical trials.
Shroff is studying the effectiveness of a combination therapy that pairs a checkpoint inhibitor with a targeted therapy in patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer. In Darmer’s case, many of the cancerous spots on his lungs have either shrunk or completely disappeared since beginning the trial.
“I spent more time with my family, because I didn’t know how much time I had. None of us do, really,” Darmer said of the gift of time the clinical trial provided him. “I looked at it as an opportunity to live my life to the fullest.”