Former U.S. senator and university president Ben Sasse said that his tumors have shrunk by 80%, according to an interview with Sola Media published Wednesday. Sasse said the improvement likely won’t change his terminal diagnosis of pancreatic cancer.
The disease has metastasized to five systems in his body, including his liver and lungs. However, a marker of cancer levels in his blood was down 99% in five months, he said.
The change was due to his participation in a clinical trial of a new cancer drug called daraxonrasib, he said. Sasse told Sola Media that the drug caused him to bleed from his head and hair follicles, but he considered that side effect to be small. Sasse also shared that spots on his lungs recently grew slightly, but he emphasized that the news of his tumors shrinking outweighed the “not ideal” situation of his lungs.
Sasse didn’t speculate on how much longer the new treatment might help him live, but he said he’d already lived more than double the doctors’ original 90-day estimate. He was grateful for extra Sunday services and family dinners, he said in the 40-minute interview with Sola Media.
This story originally appeared in WORLD. © 2026, reprinted with permission. All rights reserved.
