Truty Mark J, Urrutia Raul
Department of Surgery, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN 55905, USA.
Pancreatology. 2007;7(5-6):423-35. doi: 10.1159/000108959. Epub 2007 Sep 25.
Pancreatic cancer is the 4th leading cause of cancer-related death in the United States. The number of diagnoses per year equals the number of deaths per year, making it the deadliest of all malignancies. Modern advances and breakthroughs in molecular oncology have allowed researchers to gain a better understanding of the mechanisms responsible for the pathogenesis of this disease. The transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-beta) pathway is one of the signaling systems that has been identified as a major contributor. TGF-beta plays a paradoxical role as both a tumor suppressor and a tumor promoter in pancreatic cancer. The purpose of this review is to provide the practicing clinician a thorough review of this molecule and its associated signaling partners in the context of its duplicitous role and behavior in patients with pancreatic cancer.
胰腺癌是美国癌症相关死亡的第四大主要原因。每年的诊断病例数与死亡病例数相等，使其成为所有恶性肿瘤中致死率最高的。分子肿瘤学的现代进展和突破使研究人员能够更好地理解导致这种疾病发病机制的因素。转化生长因子-β（TGF-β）信号通路是已被确定为主要促成因素的信号系统之一。TGF-β在胰腺癌中既作为肿瘤抑制因子又作为肿瘤促进因子发挥着矛盾的作用。本综述的目的是在TGF-β在胰腺癌患者中的双重作用和行为背景下，为临床医生提供对该分子及其相关信号伙伴的全面综述。
