Prognostic and predictive markers in pancreatic adenocarcinoma.

Nha Le, Malin Sund, Alessio Vinci

Journal: Digestive and liver disease : official journal of the Italian Society of Gastroenterology and the Italian Association for the Study of the Liver 2016;48(3):223-30

PMID: 26769569

Free Full Text on Elsevier Science View on PubMed

Abstract

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma is characterized by a poor prognosis and a low median survival, despite improvements observed for many other solid tumours. Intensive research efforts have been undertaken during the last decades to discover new prognostic and treatment predictive biomarkers for pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma. The mainstay of medical treatment for the disease has been the well-tolerated nucleoside analogue, gemcitabine. The only targeted agent currently used in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma patients is the epithelial growth factor receptor inhibitor erlotinib in combination with gemcitabine. Recently, treatment regimens such as a combination of fluorouracil-leucovorin-irinotecan-oxaliplatin (FOLFIRINOX) and the combination of nab-paclitaxel with gemcitabine have been introduced for metastatic pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma. Although these treatment regimens significantly improve survival of patients, there are no good predictive biomarkers available that can be used to identify who would benefit most from them. Therefore, the search for predictive biomarkers that would facilitate personalization of chemotherapy is highly relevant.

Address: Semmelweis University, Second Internal Medicine Department, Gastroenterology Division, Budapest, Hungary.; University of Umeå, Department of Surgical and Perioperative Sciences, Umeå, Sweden. Electronic address: [email protected].; University of Pavia, Department of Surgery, IRCCS S. Matteo University Hospital Foundation, Pavia, Italy.

DOI: 10.1016/j.dld.2015.11.001