Prevention and treatment of pancreatic cancer

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A number of gastrointestinal tumors, including pancreas cancer, have been shown to overexpress the EGFR. The overexpression of EGFR correlates with rapidly progressive disease and poor prognosis. Targeting EGFR pathway as a potential therapeutic strategy for pancreas cancer has been developed. Erlotinib is a small molecule tyrosine kinase inhibitor that efficiently blocks EGFR. Preliminary results of phase III trial in pancreas cancer revealed an improvement in survival with the addition of erlotinib. Treatment with anti-EGFR agents is used as a potential therapeutic strategy for pancreas cancer, but the mechanisms are still not precisely understood.

This article was published on September 21, 2008 in the World Journal of Gastroenterology The research team from Department of Gastroenterology, Affiliated First People's Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China studied the effects of erlotinib on six different pancreas cancer cell lines. How erlotinib exhibits its antineoplastic activity in vivo needs to be further elucidated.

In this study authors revealed the efficacy of erlotinib, as a single agent, on pancreas cancer cells growth in vitro, and in vivo study using a nude mice xenograft model and the mechanisms involved were also explored. Erlotinib repressed BxPC-3 cell growth in a dose-dependent manner, triggered G1 arrest and induced cell apoptosis,and suppressed capillary formation of endothelium in vitro. In vivo, erlotinib treated mice demonstrated a reduced tumor volume and weight as compared with control. The relationship between EGFR and angiogenesis has also been investigated using tube formation assay in vitro and immunohistochemical analysis of tumor-associated blood vessels in vivo. These findings provide evidence for the inhibitive activity of erlotinib in pancreas cancer cells. Inhibition of EGFR may be a promising adjuvant in chemotherapeutic strategy in the therapy of the dismal disease. The results also demonstrate that EGFR signaling pathway is an important target in pancreas cancer.


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