Hung Yu-Hsuan, Hsu Ming-Chuan, Chen Li-Tzong, Hung Wen-Chun, Pan Mei-Ren
National Institute of Cancer Research, National Health Research Institutes, Tainan 704, Taiwan.
Division of Hematology/Oncology, Department of Internal Medicine, National Cheng Kung University Hospital, Tainan 704, Taiwan.
J Clin Med. 2019 Jun 24;8(6):903. doi: 10.3390/jcm8060903.
The incidence of pancreatic cancer has considerably increased in the past decade. Pancreatic cancer has the worst prognosis among the cancers of the digestive tract because the pancreas is located in the posterior abdominal cavity, and most patients do not show clinical symptoms for early detection. Approximately 55% of all patients are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer only after the tumors metastasize. Therefore, identifying useful biomarkers for early diagnosis and screening high-risk groups are important to improve pancreatic cancer therapy. Recent emerging evidence has suggested that genetic and epigenetic alterations play a crucial role in the molecular aspects of pancreatic tumorigenesis. Here, we summarize recent progress in our understanding of the epigenetic alterations in pancreatic cancer and propose potential synthetic lethal strategies to target these genetic defects to treat this deadly disease.
在过去十年中，胰腺癌的发病率显著上升。在消化道癌症中，胰腺癌的预后最差，因为胰腺位于腹腔后部，大多数患者在早期没有临床症状以供早期检测。所有患者中约55%仅在肿瘤转移后才被诊断出患有胰腺癌。因此，识别用于早期诊断的有用生物标志物并筛查高危人群对于改善胰腺癌治疗至关重要。最近新出现的证据表明，基因和表观遗传改变在胰腺肿瘤发生的分子方面起着关键作用。在此，我们总结了我们对胰腺癌表观遗传改变的最新认识进展，并提出了潜在的合成致死策略，以针对这些基因缺陷来治疗这种致命疾病。
