Summary
Pancreatic cancer is predicted to remain as the fourth leading cause of cancer associated death in the United States in 2006. The annual death rate approximates the annual incidence rate because this disease, with rare exception, becomes locally advanced or metastatic and resistant to cytotoxic chemotherapy. Unfortunately, in eight randomized controlled clinical trials, the standard oncologic principle of combining drugs with demonstrated single agent activity and unique mechanism of action has not resulted in clinical benefit beyond gemcitabine alone. Molecular pathways that confer significant biological advantage to most human cancers have been identified over the past three decades. Drugs designed to specifically disrupt these essential pathways are currently in clinical development and hopefully will bear new standards of care for patients with pancreatic cancer.
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Goel, A., Kozuch, P. (2008). Molecularly Targeted Therapy in Pancreatic Cancer. In: Kaufman, H.L., Wadler, S., Antman, K. (eds) Molecular Targeting in Oncology. Cancer Drug Discovery and Development. Humana Press. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-59745-337-0_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-59745-337-0_9
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