Therapeutics Progression in Pancreatic Cancer and Cancer Stem Cells

Abstract

Pancreatic cancer (PC) is one of the most lethal malignant tumors, which often result from diagnoses of advanced stages and ineffective therapies. A main reason for this extremely poor prognosis is the cancer’s tendency to invade adjacent tissues and metastasize to regional lymph at a relatively early stage. Nowadays, the resistance to conventional chemotherapy is becoming crucial in poor clinical outcomes of PC. In order to improve the prognosis and clinical outcomes of PC, there is a pressing need to develop new therapeutic strategies not only aimed at preventing invasion and metastasis, but also improving the resistance of chemotherapies. The resistance to conventional therapeutic agents in cancer may be sustained by a fraction of cancer cells within the tumor, which is called the cancer stem cells (CSCs). Combined therapies targeting CSCs and their progenies may represent the most promising approach for the future treatment of patients with PC.