Novel diagnostic and therapeutic approaches to pancreatic cancer
PANCREATIC CANCER is highly resistant to therapy. The traditional treatment modalities of surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy, singly or in combination, have made little impact on this disease; however, basic scientific research has improved our understanding of the biology of pancreatic cancer, resulting in identification of a number of targets that could be exploited in future clinical trials. These include the K-ras oncogene, potentially valuable in early detection strategies and as a target for gene and drug therapies; paracrine and autocrine growth factors, providing novel targets for intervention using chemical or biologic agents; and transgenic models of pancreatic cancer, providing insights into the important molecular events involved in pancreatic carcinogenesis, as well as providing information on pancreas-specific enhancer/promoter sequences that may allow selective expression of target proteins in pancreatic cancer cells.
