Molecular landscape of pancreatic cancer: implications for current clinical trials. Oncotarget 2015 Mar 10;6(7):4553-61
Date
02/26/2015Pubmed ID
25714017Pubmed Central ID
PMC4467098DOI
10.18632/oncotarget.2972Scopus ID
2-s2.0-84925004122 (requires institutional sign-in at Scopus site) 83 CitationsAbstract
Despite recent improvements, overall survival for advanced adenocarcinoma of the pancreas continues to be poor. In comparison to other tumor types that have enjoyed marked survival benefit by targeting aberrant cell signaling pathways, standard of care treatment for pancreatic cancer is limited to conventional cytotoxic chemotherapy. Multiple pathway aberrations have been documented in pancreatic cancer. A review of the COSMIC database reveals that most pancreatic cancers contain somatic mutations, with the five most frequent being KRAS, TP53, CDKN2A, SMAD4, and ARID1A, and multiple other abnormalities seen including, but not limited to, mutations in STK11/LKB1, FBXW7, PIK3CA, and BRAF. In the era of tumor profiling, these aberrations may provide an opportunity for new therapeutic approaches. Yet, searching clinicaltrials.gov for recent drug intervention trials for pancreatic adenocarcinoma, remarkably few (10 of 116 (8.6%)) new study protocols registered in the last three years included a molecular/biomarker stratification strategy. Enhanced efforts to target subsets of patients with pancreatic cancer in order to optimize therapy benefit are warranted.
Author List
Heestand GM, Kurzrock RAuthor
Razelle Kurzrock MD Center Associate Director, Professor in the Medicine department at Medical College of WisconsinMESH terms used to index this publication - Major topics in bold
Biomarkers, TumorClinical Trials as Topic
Humans
Pancreatic Neoplasms