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Copyright ©The Author(s) 2023. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastrointest Oncol. Apr 15, 2023; 15(4): 571-595
Published online Apr 15, 2023. doi: 10.4251/wjgo.v15.i4.571
Recent advances in targeted therapy for pancreatic adenocarcinoma
Yu-Ting Fang, Wen-Wei Yang, Ya-Ru Niu, Yong-Kun Sun
Yu-Ting Fang, Wen-Wei Yang, Ya-Ru Niu, Yong-Kun Sun, Department of Medical Oncology, National Cancer Center/National Clinical Research Center for Cancer/Cancer Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing 100021, China
Yong-Kun Sun, Department of Medical Oncology, National Cancer Center/National Clinical Research Center for Cancer/Hebei Cancer Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Langfang 065001, Hebei Province, China
Author contributions: Fang YT wrote the manuscript and mapped the figure; Yang WW, Niu YR, and Sun YK collected the data and gave suggestions.
Supported by The National Key Research and Development Program of China, No. 2021YFF1201300; and The Special Foundation of Wu Jieping Medical Foundation for Clinical Scientific Research, No. 320.6750.2022-10-95.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors have no conflicts of interests to declare.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (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: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Yong-Kun Sun, MD, Professor, Department of Medical Oncology, National Cancer Center/National Clinical Research Center for Cancer/Cancer Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, No. 17 Panjiayuan South Lane, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100021, China. hsunyk@cicams.ac.cn
Received: October 15, 2022
Peer-review started: October 15, 2022
First decision: November 2, 2022
Revised: November 11, 2022
Accepted: March 15, 2023
Article in press: March 15, 2023
Published online: April 15, 2023
Core Tip

Core Tip: Pancreatic adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is a fatal and rare disease with a 5-year survival rate of 8% and a median survival of 6 mo. In PDAC, targeted therapy has been extensively evaluated; however, survival improvement of this aggressive disease using a targeted strategy has been minimal. This manuscript summarizes current targeted therapies and clinical trials targeting dysregulated signaling pathways and components of the PDAC oncogenic process, analyzes possible reasons for the lack of positive results in clinical trials, and suggests ways to improve them. We also discuss emerging trends in targeted therapies for PDAC: combining targeted inhibitors of multiple pathways.