Muhammad Wasif Saif, Onyekachi Henry Ogbonna
Pancreatic cancer remains a devastating disease, with poor survival rates and high recurrence rates with current treatmentregimens. Over the years we have come to understand the complex biology of this cancer, involving cross-talking signalingpathways that proffers resistance to current therapy. Several molecularly targeted agents remain in development. At the2013 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting, an abstract (#4051) was presented which exploredusing endoscopic ultrasound-guided fine needle aspiration of pancreatic cancer tissue to identify molecular targets, andargued for the feasibility of personalizing pancreatic cancer therapy based on the activated molecular pathways identified.We summarize their findings and discuss the possibility of utilizing this model to obtain a better understanding of pancreaticcancer at each stage of its metamorphosis and target therapy at these different levels
