Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. May 28, 2015; 21(20): 6127-6145
Published online May 28, 2015. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v21.i20.6127
New targeted therapies in pancreatic cancer
Andrada Seicean, Livia Petrusel, Radu Seicean
Andrada Seicean, Livia Petrusel, Regional Institute of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Iuliu Hatieganu University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Cluj-Napoca 4000192, Romania
Radu Seicean, First Surgery Clinic, Iuliu Hatieganu University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Cluj-Napoca 4000192, Romania
Author contributions: Seicean A and Seicean R reviewed the literature; Seicean A, Petrusel L and Seicean R wrote the paper.
Conflict-of-interest: The authors have no conflicts of interests to disclose.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Andrada Seicean, MD, PhD, Regional Institute of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Iuliu Hatieganu University of Medicine and Pharmacy, 19-21 Croitorilor Street, Cluj-Napoca 400162, Romania. andradaseicean@gmail.com
Telephone: +40-744-332107 Fax: +40-264-431758
Received: December 12, 2014
Peer-review started: December 12, 2014
First decision: February 2, 2015
Revised: February 26, 2015
Accepted: April 16, 2015
Article in press: April 17, 2015
Published online: May 28, 2015
Processing time: 169 Days and 8.2 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: Adjuvant therapy in pancreatic cancer has limited efficiency, and low survival rates are related to resistance to gemcitabine. New targeted therapies, such as passive immunotherapy, may have a role in combination with radiochemotherapy by targeting various protein kinases, as well as specific immunotherapies, such as vaccines, adoptive cell therapy and immunotherapy targeting tumor stem cells. In the future, treatments will likely include personalized medicine, tailored for numerous molecular therapeutic targets of multiple pathogenetic pathways.