Current diagnostic and treatment options for pancreatic cancer in 2024.

Abstract

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma is a cancer disease with a very poor prognosis, which poses the third-leading cause of cancer-related deaths and whose incidence and mortality have been predicted to increase significantly in the upcoming years. Almost 80% of patients are diagnosed with advanced unresectable disease and therefore rely on palliative anticancer treatment with limited efficacy. However, even in case of 10-20 % of patients who have successfully undergone radical surgical resection of the localized disease and subsequent adjuvant chemotherapy, the vast majority will relapse within 2-3 years of surgery. The reasons can be found in late diagnosis due to the prolonged clinically asymptomatic course of the disease, complicated anatomical localization, significant tumor heterogeneity, which makes it difficult to test new drugs and, last but not least, in the presence of dense tumor stroma, that complicates the access of cytostatics and targeted drugs into the tumor tissue. Here we present a summary of current treatment options of localized and advanced pancreatic cancer, including molecular diagnostics and targeted treatment of small patients subgroups.