Treatment Strategy for Pancreatic Cancer Outlined

Pancreatic cancer kills nearly 96% of its victims, because the disease often forms metastases before it can be clinically detected and treated.

Investigators at the University of Cincinnati (OH, USA) studied both mouse and human forms of pancreatic cancer. They used immunological blotting and staining techniques to show that the RON receptor, which was known to be overexpressed and/or constitutively active in several epithelial cancers, was present in pancreatic cancer cells.

Results published in the July 1, 2007, issue of Cancer Research revealed that the RON receptor was active in 93% of lesions from pancreatic intraepithelial neoplasia, an early form of pancreatic duct cancer. Furthermore, the receptor was present in 79% of primary pancreatic cancers and 83% of metastatic cancers.

A normal pancreas has very low levels of RON, but our study showed that as tumors progress, so does the level of RON expression in the pancreas cells-and those overexpressed levels were maintained in metastases, the areas that the tumors spread to, explained senior author Dr. Susan Waltz, associate professor of oncology at the University of Cincinnati. When cells became invasive, we saw higher levels of RON expression that correlated with the aggressive nature of this disease and cancer metastasis.

Clearly, this signaling pathway is associated with pancreatic cancer and merits further investigation. Our findings suggest that combining antibodies that block the RON receptor and the standard chemotherapy drugs might stop progression of pancreatic cancer more effectively. RON could be a promising molecular target for future cancer drug development.


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