Sarris Evangelos G, Syrigos Konstantinos N, Saif Muhammad Wasif
Oncology Unit, Third Department of Medicine, University of Athens, Sotiria General Hospital, Athens, Greece.
JOP. 2013 Mar 10;14(2):145-8. doi: 10.6092/1590-8577/1466.
Pancreatic cancer is one of the most lethal malignancies with a mortality rate almost equal to its incidence. It is ranked as the fourth leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States, and despite intensive basic and clinical research over the last few years, the survival benefit for the majority of patients with pancreatic cancer is still disappointing. Due to the absence of specific symptoms and the lack of early detection tests, pancreatic cancer is usually diagnosed at an advanced inoperrable stage and palliative chemotherapy with the purine analogue gemcitabine in combination with the targeted agent erlotinib, remains the mainstay method in the management of these patients. Therefore, there is an imperative need for new findings in the translational research field with prognostic, predictive and therapeutic value. In this paper we summarize five most interesting research abstracts as presented at the 2013 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium. In particular, we focus on Abstract #141 which investigates the interaction between liver and pancreatic organ damage in patients with pancreatic cancer and the potential contribution of the patatin-like phospholipase domain containing 3 (PNPLA3) gene variation in pancreatic cancer development and on Abstract #149, in which, the prognostic and predictive role of SWI/SNF complex, a chromatin-remodeling complex, is examined. The key role of pharmacogenomics, in terms of predicting response and resistance to chemotherapy in pancreatic cancer patients, is analyzed in Abstract #142 and the contribution of circulating tumor cell detection in the early diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, allowing the avoidance of more invasive procedures like EUS-FNA, is discussed in Abstract #157. Lastly, in Abstract #164, the diagnostic utility of YKL-40 and IL-6 in pancreatic cancer patients is investigated.
胰腺癌是最致命的恶性肿瘤之一，其死亡率几乎与发病率相当。在美国，它是癌症相关死亡的第四大主要原因，尽管过去几年进行了深入的基础和临床研究，但大多数胰腺癌患者的生存获益仍然令人失望。由于缺乏特异性症状且缺乏早期检测方法，胰腺癌通常在晚期无法手术时才被诊断出来，使用嘌呤类似物吉西他滨联合靶向药物厄洛替尼进行姑息化疗，仍然是这些患者治疗的主要方法。因此，迫切需要在转化研究领域取得具有预后、预测和治疗价值的新发现。在本文中，我们总结了在2013年美国临床肿瘤学会（ASCO）胃肠道癌症研讨会上发表的五篇最有趣的研究摘要。特别地，我们重点关注摘要#141，该摘要研究了胰腺癌患者肝脏和胰腺器官损伤之间的相互作用以及含patatin样磷脂酶结构域3（PNPLA3）基因变异在胰腺癌发展中的潜在作用；还关注摘要#149，其中研究了染色质重塑复合物SWI/SNF复合物的预后和预测作用。摘要#142分析了药物基因组学在预测胰腺癌患者化疗反应和耐药性方面的关键作用，摘要#157讨论了循环肿瘤细胞检测在胰腺癌早期诊断中的作用，这有助于避免像EUS-FNA这样更具侵入性的检查。最后，在摘要#164中，研究了YKL-40和IL-6在胰腺癌患者中的诊断效用。
