Fibrosis, the dense scar tissue that can entangle peritoneal tumors and the healthy organs around them, is one reason cytoreduction surgery is denied to a portion of patients with appendiceal and other abdominal cancers. Allegheny Health Network Cancer Center’s newly launched RANDY’S Trial is built on a direct answer to that problem: test whether FDA-approved drugs already on the market can remodel that scar tissue and bring more patients into surgical eligibility. The trial did not emerge from a pharma pipeline or an NIH grant. A single community gala, the La Sera d’Oro event, raised $44,000 in 2025 to fund it.
The acronym stands for Repurposed And Naturally-Derived Drugs for the Treatment of Fibrosis in Peritoneal Carcinomatosis. Principal investigator Patrick Wagner, a surgical oncologist at AHN, is leading a multidisciplinary team that will evaluate existing medications for their ability to break down or remodel abdominal scar tissue. The mechanism matters because fibrosis does two things that complicate surgery: it obscures the boundary between healthy and diseased tissue, and it can trap cancer cells that are then left behind when a surgeon separates planes. Increasing the number of patients who clear the threshold for cytoreduction is the stated primary aim.
Appendiceal adenocarcinoma incidence has been rising in younger adults, according to a 2025 study in Annals of Internal Medicine, and peritoneal spread remains among the harder-to-treat presentations of the disease. A multicenter randomized trial of cytoreduction plus HIPEC in patients with mucinous appendiceal neoplasms, published in Annals of Surgical Oncology, enrolled 121 patients with a mean peritoneal cancer index that already signals extensive disease, which underlines how much surgical access depends on tumor burden and the tissue architecture around it. An anti-fibrotic pretreatment that shifts even a fraction of patients from inoperable to operable would change the downstream math on who reaches that procedure at all.
The trial is named after Lt. Randy Meyer II, a Pittsburgh firefighter who lived with a rare form of appendix cancer for more than a decade before his death. His wife Stephanie continues the Spread Goodness Fund, whose annual gala is the trial’s funding engine. The third La Sera d’Oro is scheduled for November 28, with ticket sales open through November 14. Enrollment is now open, and the first data the trial generates, on whether fibrosis in peritoneal carcinomatosis is pharmacologically modifiable before surgery, will be the number worth watching.
Jon Napitupulu is Director of Media Relations at The Clinical Trial Vanguard. Jon, a computer data scientist, focuses on the latest clinical trial industry news and trends.
