'Reclassification of Pancreatic Cancer offers potential cure'

A team of researchers in the UK have made a breakthrough reclassification of Pancreatic Cancer, offering new opportunities to treat the disease.
The study, co-led by Professor Andrew Biankin and a team at the University of Glasgow's Institute of Cancer Sciences, has identified four key subtypes of Pancreatic Cancer - currently the 4th leading cause of cancer death in Western societies, and projected to be the 2nd within a decade.
The research paper 'Genomic analyses identify molecular subtypes of pancreatic cancer' which is published today in Nature, has named the four subtypes as Squamous, Pancreatic Progenitor, Immunogenic and ADEX (Aberrantly Differentiated Endocrine eXocrine).

The groups were categorised based on data sets from the Australian Pancreatic Cancer Genome Initiative, after examining key aspects of pancreatic tumours including their mutational profile, the expression of genes and epigenetic changes.
Currently those suffering with pancreatic cancer have a poor prognosis, with a median survival measured in months and a five year survival rate of less than 5 per cent.
The disease progresses "silently" within the pancreas for up to 15 to 20 years, until patients present to the clinic when they are in the later stages of the disease.

From those who are diagnosed with the disease only a small number can have their tumour affected by treatment.

The current methods of treating pancreatic cancer are not targeted or selective and have been described as "hitting the disease with a mallet with your eye closed".
Researchers hope that the new reclassification will help to identify the correct targeted treatment for each individual subtype of the disease.
Professor Biankin, the Regius Chair of Surgery/Director of the Wolfson Wohl Cancer Research Centre, said: "The four subtypes that we have identified represent a reclassification of the disease and as such should provide a basis to offer new insights into personalised therapeutic options for individual patients and a launch pad to investigate new treatments."

The study also found that the four key subtypes matched with known pancreatic cancer histopathology.
Many of the genes associated with Squamous are highly expressed in molecular "Squamous-type" tumours that also appear to occur in breast, bladder, lung and head and neck cancer, while gene networks that regulate the early embryonic development of the pancreas characterise Pancreatic Progenitor.
ADEX class is defined by transcriptional networks that are important in later stages of pancreatic development and differentiation, and is a subclass of Pancreatic Progenitor tumours, while Immunogenic shares many of the characteristics of the Pancreatic Progenitor class but is associated with evidence of a significant immune infiltrate.

One of the key findings of the report was the identification of the Immunogenic subtype, which the study found could potentially prove to be responsive to types of immunotherapeutic cancer treatments.