Minireviews
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2022. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Jul 28, 2022; 28(28): 3637-3643
Published online Jul 28, 2022. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v28.i28.3637
Effective combinations of anti-cancer and targeted drugs for pancreatic cancer treatment
Arata Nishimoto
Arata Nishimoto, Division of Basic Pharmaceutical Science, Department of Pharmacy, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Sanyo-Onoda City University, Sanyo-Onoda City 756-0884, Yamaguchi, Japan
Author contributions: Nishimoto A wrote the manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: There is no conflict of interest related to this minireview manuscript.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (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: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Arata Nishimoto, PhD, Professor, Division of Basic Pharmaceutical Science, Department of Pharmacy, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Sanyo-Onoda City University, 1-1-1 Daigaku-dori , Sanyo-Onoda City 756-0884, Yamaguchi, Japan. anishimo@rs.socu.ac.jp
Received: April 1, 2022
Peer-review started: April 1, 2022
First decision: May 9, 2022
Revised: June 6, 2022
Accepted: June 30, 2022
Article in press: June 30, 2022
Published online: July 28, 2022
Core Tip

Core Tip: Gemcitabine has been the standard chemotherapy drug for patients with pancreatic cancer; however, its effectiveness is limited. Therefore, various combination therapies involving gemcitabine and targeted drugs are being explored. A review of combination therapies based mainly on clinical studies has been published recently; therefore, this minireview focuses on the findings of basic studies and discusses combinations of gemcitabine and targeted drugs, combinations of targeted drugs, combinations of natural products and anti-cancer agents, including gemcitabine, and combinations among natural products.