Pancreatic cancer: current and future treatment strategies

Abstract

Pancreatic cancer is a disease with a high mortality rate and short survival, as a result of the high incidence of metastatic disease at diagnosis, the fulminant clinical course and the lack of successful therapeutic strategies. The administration of chemotherapeutic agents for the treatment of advanced disease has failed and currently, research focuses on the understanding of molecular pathways in order to investigate the role of targeted therapy. Trials on adjuvant and neo-adjuvant therapy of pancreatic cancer are also ongoing. This review presents the recent developments with newer chemotherapeutic and molecular-targeted agents, identifying the efforts for individualized treatment strategies.