A major clinical trial on pancreatic cancer patients found that an experimental drug stopped tumors from getting worse for more than eight months and kept patients alive for up to nearly a year and a half.

The results represent an extraordinary advance in treating the disease. "We have been desperately working very hard trying to find other ways to treat the cancer," said the lead researcher on the clinical trial. "This really feels like a watershed moment. It's going to shift how we think about treatment for pancreatic cancer overall."