This is often due to delayed diagnosis and aggressive metastatic potential. New diagnostic and therapeutic strategies continue to be developed. Increasingly, these new strategies are enhanced by utilizing information from the molecular biology of pancreatic cancer.
Gene therapy is an exiting, new approach in the treatment of malignant disease.
However, a realistic view of gene therapy for pancreatic cancer is necessary for both physicians and their patients. First, with the exception of one or two early clinical trials, the present status of gene therapy for pancreatic cancer remains in the laboratory. Success in treating human pancreatic cancer xenografts in mice does not necessarily predict success in treating naturally occurring human pancreatic cancer. Hurdles in gene therapy for this disease include more efficient gene delivery, targeting tumor cells versus normal pancreatic parenchyma, and development of systemic delivery strategies to complement local gene delivery. Gene therapy represents a challenge to the basic science and clinical investigators who use these molecular targets in the development of more effective treatment of patients with pancreatic cancer.