Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastrointest Oncol. Jan 15, 2016; 8(1): 55-66
Published online Jan 15, 2016. doi: 10.4251/wjgo.v8.i1.55
State of the art biological therapies in pancreatic cancer
Mariacristina Di Marco, Elisa Grassi, Sandra Durante, Silvia Vecchiarelli, Andrea Palloni, Marina Macchini, Riccardo Casadei, Claudio Ricci, Riccardo Panzacchi, Donatella Santini, Guido Biasco
Mariacristina Di Marco, Elisa Grassi, Sandra Durante, Silvia Vecchiarelli, Andrea Palloni, Marina Macchini, Guido Biasco, Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine, University of Bologna, Sant’Orsola-Malpighi Hospital, 40138 Bologna, Italy
Riccardo Casadei, Claudio Ricci, Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences, University of Bologna, Sant’Orsola-Malpighi Hospital, 40138 Bologna, Italy
Riccardo Panzacchi, Donatella Santini, Pathology Unit, Sant’Orsola-Malpighi Hospital, 40138 Bologna, Italy
Author contributions: Each author contributed to this paper.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected byan in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Elisa Grassi, MD, Department of Experimental, Diagnostic and Specialty Medicine, University of Bologna, Sant’Orsola-Malpighi Hospital, Massarenti Street 11, 40138 Bologna, Italy. elisa.grax@gmail.com
Telephone: +39-051-2143812 Fax: +39-051-6364037
Received: May 28, 2015
Peer-review started: May 30, 2015
First decision: July 18, 2015
Revised: August 18, 2015
Accepted: November 17, 2015
Article in press: November 25, 2015
Published online: January 15, 2016
Abstract

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is one of the most lethal malignancies with a five-year survival rate of approximately 5%. Several target agents have been tested in PDAC, but almost all have failed to demonstrate efficacy in late phase clinical trials, despite the better understanding of PDAC molecular biology generated by large cancer sequencing initiatives in the past decade. Eroltinib (a small-molecule tyrosine-kinase inhibitor of epidermal growth factor receptor) plus gemcitabine is the only schedule with a biological agent approved for advanced pancreatic cancer, but it has resulted in a very modest survival benefit in unselected patients. In our work, we report a summary of the main clinical trials (closed and ongoing) that refer to biological therapy evaluation in pancreatic cancer treatment.

Keywords: Pancreatic cancer, Molecular characterization, Targeted therapy, Epidermal growth factor receptor inhibitors, Embryonic pathway inhibitors, Antiangiogenic therapies

Core tip: Our study aims to give an overview of the progress made in molecular targeted therapy for pancreatic cancer in recent years and the current status of clinical trials in the field. Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is one of the most lethal malignancies with a five-year survival rate of approximately 5%. Several target agents have been tested in PDAC but almost all have failed to demonstrate efficacy in late phase clinical trials, even with a better understanding of PDAC molecular biology generated by large cancer sequencing initiatives in the past decade. Eroltinib (small-molecule tyrosine-kinase inhibitor of epidermal growth factor receptor) plus gemcitabine is actually the only schedule with a biological agent approved for advanced pancreatic cancer, but it resulted in a very modest survival benefit in unselected patients. In our work, we reported a summary of the main clinical trials (close and ongoing) that refer to biological therapy evaluation in pancreatic cancer treatment.