Recent advances and developments in treatment strategies against pancreatic cancer

Abstract

Recent years have seen improvements in strategies to treat pancreatic cancer. Pancreatic cancer is a leading cause of cancer-related death in the world, and is characterised by rapid disease progression, highly invasive tumour phenotype and resistance to chemotherapy. Patient prognosis is extremely grim, with a one-year survival rate of just 10% and only a 5% chance of surviving beyond five years. There has been little change in the treatment regimen, with 5-FU-based therapies being the usual route. Gemcitabine has also offered some relief over the past two decades, with modest improvements in median survival. This lack of choice has increased the call for new treatments, and indeed, novel drugs are now being investigated for their use in pancreatic cancer. These include those agents classically applied to other indications such as doxycycline and doxorubicin, as well as dietary components such as curcumin and genistein. Each of these drugs possesses different levels of activity both as single agents and in combinatorial approaches with gemcitabine. This review will discuss the difficulties in treating pancreatic cancer, and will summarise the progress and latest development in drugs used within this field of cancer.