Mayo Clinic researchers suggest that the majority of patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) should be considered for staging laparoscopy with peritoneal lavage prior to resection. The procedure could be particularly important for people with high-risk features such as young age, large tumor size, indeterminate extrapancreatic lesions on preoperative imaging,…

According to the National Cancer Institute, pancreatic cancer kills 50,000 people each year, and there are few effective treatment options. Now, a new mouse study by researchers at the University of California (UC), San Diego, School of Medicine demonstrates that the enzyme MICAL2 which normally plays a role in cell…

A new study led by researchers from the Champalimaud Foundation in Lisbon, Portugal, has, for the first time, detected pre-cancerous lesions in the pancreas using diffusion tensor imagining (DFI). Reporting on their work in the journal Investigative Radiology, the investigators detailed how they used DFI, a specialized form of MRI…

A new study led by researchers at Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center and Oregon Health & Science University has found that a combination of two drugs could turn pancreatic tumors, which are typically resistant to immunotherapy, into more immune-responsive cancers. Published in Nature Communications, the study offers promising insights into…

A new study demonstrates an immunotherapy-based approach to pancreatic cancer treatment in mice that combines the delivery of STING and TLR4 innate immune agonists using lipid-based nanoparticles (NPs), with the tumor-targeting MEK inhibitor trametinib and CDK4/6 inhibitor palbociclib, known as T/P. Led by scientists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst…

Investigators at Stanford University have discovered the role of cell stiffness and the chemical makeup of pancreatic cancer tissue has in its resistance to chemotherapy. The research, published in Nature Materials, suggests that treatment resistance can be reversed and has uncovered new potential therapeutic targets to do this. “We found…

Researchers have known that in up to one in 10 pancreatic cancer cases, some of the pancreatic cells appear to have lost their identity. Now, however, Maia-Silva and colleagues at CSHL have uncovered how the MED12 protein may play a critical role in this process. The findings are published a…

New research has unveiled a key relationship between two proteins that causes a unique subtype of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma cancer (PDAC) known as basal-like pancreatic cancer, which affects around 15% of PDAC patients. This subtype exhibits an unusual transformation, causing the pancreatic cells to take on characteristics akin to skin…

Scientists at the University of California, San Francisco, have found a way to target K-Ras-G12D mutations, which are especially prevalent in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma. This marks an important breakthrough as K-Ras mutations are were considered until recently, to be all but undruggable. But ever since the arrival of sotorasib and…

An experimental cancer vaccine developed by Elicio Therapeutics to target tumors with KRAS mutations has achieved good results in a Phase I trial in patients with residual pancreatic and colorectal cancer following earlier treatment. As reported in Nature Medicine, the majority of patients in the study (84%) had a T…

Investigators at Weill Cornell Medicine say they have identified a new potential pancreatic cancer treatment using an organoid model—lab grown tissues that mimic the geometry and function of the pancreas containing a common cancer driving mutation. In their study, published Tuesday in the journal Cell Stem Cell, the researchers found…

Researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine have unveiled a compound known as perhexiline maleate as a promising new target for future pancreatic cancer treatments using a drug screening process based on organoids. Reporting in Cell Stem Cell, the study involved the testing of over 6,000 compounds on pancreatic tumor organoids—three-dimensional structures…

Most pancreatic tumors are surrounded by a thick, nearly impenetrable wall of fibrosis— scar tissue—that makes it hard for drugs to access and destroy the cancer cells. Researchers at the Salk Institute have now discovered how a class of anticancer drugs called histone deacetylase inhibitors (HDACi) can help treat pancreatic…

Researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University have discovered a new way of using a synthetic double-stranded RNA for the treatment of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), an aggressive type of pancreatic cancer.  As the most common form of pancreatic cancer, 95% of all pancreatic cancers are diagnosed as PDAC. It is also…

An international consortium of researchers, led by City of Hope and TGen, has been awarded a five-year, $4.5 million grant to validate a liquid biopsy for the early detection of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). The National Institutes of Health’s National Cancer Institute (NCI) awarded the grant to co-principal investigators Ajay…