Dear colleagues,
Pancreatic cancer is a highly aggressive malignancy with increasing incidence worldwide, with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) accounting for the large majority of cases. PDAC has a dismal prognosis, with a 5-year survival rate of less than 10%. At the time of diagnosis, most patients present with locally advanced pancreatic lesions and/or metastasis, due to fast tumor progression and the absence of specific symptoms or effective screening options.
Currently, multiagent chemotherapies represent the standard-of-care for advanced PDAC, albeit with modest benefits. Despite the recent breakthrough represented by immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy, clinical trials have failed to show a benefit for PDAC. The current paradigm is that PDACs are highly desmoplastic and poorly vascularized. This decreases the ability of immune cells or drugs to reach the tumor, explaining some of the inherent refractoriness towards chemo- and immunotherapies.
Intensive efforts have therefore been directed towards targeted therapies and personalized approaches. Recent advances in the development of allele-specific KRAS inhibitors have opened new avenues for targeted therapy of PDAC. In addition, a small subset of patients with metastatic PDAC and BRCA1/2 germline mutations has been shown to benefit from targeted therapy with a PARP-inhibitor. Furthermore, large omics studies have revealed the existence of different molecular subtypes of PDAC, which could be used to improve personalized therapy.
This Special Issue seeks research papers and topical reviews that provide new insights into the mechanisms of drug and immune resistance in PDAC, how to circumvent them, and how to improve early detection, existing treatments, and personalized therapy.
Nathalie Britzen-Laurent
Guest Editor
Manuscripts should be submitted via our online editorial system at https://imr.propub.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to start your submission. Manuscripts can be submitted now or up until the deadline. All papers will go through peer-review process. Accepted papers will be published in the journal (as soon as accepted) and meanwhile listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, reviews as well as short communications are preferred. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office to announce on this website.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts will be thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. Please visit the Instruction for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) in this open access journal is 2500 USD. Submitted manuscripts should be well formatted in good English.