Immunity and Pancreatic Cancer

The pancreas has two morphologically and functionally distinct compartments: one comprising the exocrine cells, and the other comprising the endocrine cells [10]. The exocrine cells are the suppliers of various digestive enzymes to the upper small intestine through pancreatic duct, and the endocrine cells are the suppliers of various pancreatic hormones directly to the blood. Not surprisingly there are two broad divisions of Pancreatic Cancer (PC): the Exocrine Pancreatic Cancer, and the Neuroendocrine Pancreatic Cancer. The Exocrine Pancreatic Cancers are further divided into several sub-types that vary from each other histologically, and in symptoms and prognosis. Of these the Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma (PDAC), an Exocrine Pancreatic Cancer, is the most common amongst all the reported cases of PC. More than 90% of the PCs are found to be PDACs [12, 7]. From here on the term PC will be used to mean PDAC. PC is one of the deadliest cancers in the world because the PC is mostly detected when the tumor is not removable by surgery, and or the tumor has invaded the other organs of the body [9, 7, 3, 11]. There are three known precursor lesions of PC, without progressing through the various grades of which in steps PC does not develop [4, 2, 9]. These are Intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasms (IPMNs), mucinous