Pathology of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma: Facts, challenges and future developments

Figure 4 Milestones in pancreatic cancer biology. Mutations of KRAS, CDKN2A/p16, SMAD4 and TP53 represent the molecular fingerprint of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC)[53]. Global genomic analysis of PDAC defined a set of 12 core signalling pathways commonly altered in the great majority of investigated tumors[17]. Three distinct molecular PDAC subtypes [“classical”, “quasi-mesenchymal” (QM) and “exocrine-like”] with prognostic relevance and distinct drug response were defined based on combined analysis of transcriptional profiles of primary tumor samples and human and mouse PDAC cell lines[54].