Open AccessState of the art biological therapies in pancreatic cancer
Author(s) -
Mariacristina Di Marco,
Elisa Grassi,
Sandra Durante,
Silvia Vecchiarelli,
Andrea Palloni,
Marina Macchini,
Riccardo Casadei,
Claudio Ricci,
Riccardo Panzacchi,
Donatella Santini,
Guido Biasco
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
world journal of gastrointestinal oncology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.924
H-Index - 26
ISSN - 1948-5204
DOI - 10.4251/wjgo.v8.i1.55
Subject(s) - medicine , pancreatic cancer , gemcitabine , clinical trial , cancer , oncology , pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma , epidermal growth factor receptor , overall survival , cancer research
Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is one of the most lethal malignancies with a five-year survival rate of approximately 5%. Several target agents have been tested in PDAC, but almost all have failed to demonstrate efficacy in late phase clinical trials, despite the better understanding of PDAC molecular biology generated by large cancer sequencing initiatives in the past decade. Eroltinib (a small-molecule tyrosine-kinase inhibitor of epidermal growth factor receptor) plus gemcitabine is the only schedule with a biological agent approved for advanced pancreatic cancer, but it has resulted in a very modest survival benefit in unselected patients. In our work, we report a summary of the main clinical trials (closed and ongoing) that refer to biological therapy evaluation in pancreatic cancer treatment.