Molecular Research on Pancreatic Cancer: Current Trends and New Perspectives

Dear Colleagues,

Over the last decade we observed a significant improvement in the prognosis of many solid tumors thanks to the advent of immunotherapy and targeted therapies expanding the therapeutic opportunities for cancer patients and realizing the promise of personalized medicine. Despite these advances, pancreatic cancer remains an incurable disease, where immune-checkpoint inhibitors and targeted drugs are generally not efficacious. For this reason, it is still perceived as a hopeless disease by both patients and physicians. More than 80% of pancreatic cancer patients are diagnosed when the tumor is in contact with vascular structures or when distant metastases are present, and thus surgical excision is not indicated. For these patients, the standard of care is palliative chemotherapy, with a median overall survival of 11 months. Since 2011, three independent studies by Collison, Moffit and Bailey identified different pancreatic cancer subtypes based on gene expression profiles, suggesting that pancreatic cancer is not a unique entity, but should be regarded as a collection of different diseases. As demonstrated for other cancers, the identification of molecular subtypes allows a better prediction of disease behavior and the design of targeted therapeutic strategies. This Special Issue addresses the molecular and clinical heterogeneity of pancreatic cancer, presenting studies regarding molecular pathways involved in pancreatic cancer development, metastasization and treatment resistance, thus suggesting potential therapeutic strategies for more personalized and effective therapy.

Dr. Cinzia Bagalà
Dr. Marta Chiaravalli
Guest Editors

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• pancreatic cancer
• tumor growth
• metastatization
• microenvironment
• drug resistance
• molecular pathway
• targeted therapy
• immunotherapy
• tumor molecular profile
• precision medicine