Hot topics in pancreatic cancer management

Abstract

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is a sneaky and lethal disease burdened by poor prognosis. PDAC is often detected too late to be successfully cured, and it has been estimated that it will be a leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the near future. During the last decade, multimodal treatments involving surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy have contributed to improving the prognosis of this disease; however, long-term results are still not satisfactory. Postoperative morbidity and mortality rates remain high, and systemic treatments are burdened by toxicity in both neoadjuvant and adjuvant settings. Advancements in technologies, targeted therapies, immunotherapy and PDAC microenvironment modulation strategies may represent useful potential weapons in the future. Nevertheless, in the fight against this dreadful disease, there is an urgent need for new, cheap and user-friendly tools for early detection. In this field, promising results have been found in nanotechnologies and “omics” analyses that search for new biomarkers to be used in primary and secondary prevention. However, there are many issues that need to be solved before considering these tools in daily clinical practice. This editorial reported the state of the art of pancreatic cancer management.

Keywords: Pancreatic cancer; Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma; Nanotechnology; Neoadjuvant therapy; Adjuvant therapy; Omics

Core Tip: The purpose of this editorial was to provide an up-to-date summary of pancreatic cancer management. The current state of multimodal therapies and the increasingly urgent need for development of tools for early diagnosis were summarized. The editorial also presented the high quality papers in the fields of basic, clinical, preventive and translational medicine that will help further investigations focused on this topic.