Research regarding the growth rate of pancreatic cancer published online in the prestigious journal Nature is generating a significant amount of media buzz for its surprising and unexpected findings.
Pancreatic cancer carries one of the worst prognoses of any cancer. Patients are almost always diagnosed when the cancer has fully metastasized, and available treatment options do little but delay the inevitable. The overwhelming majority of patients die within a couple years of diagnosis.
This rapid decline has always been associated with tumor aggressiveness, which makes this most recent research so surprising:
Researchers sequenced the genomes of seven pancreatic cancer metastases and then analyzed the genetic evolution from cancer cells found at the primary (pancreas) site. In other words, they kind of traced this cancer's family tree - which had spread (metastasized) - back to its founder, and they were able to determine that the time between the initial mutation and the "birth of the non-metastatic founder cell" is about ten years.
They further determined that another five years are needed for the cancer to metastasize. It is typically around this time that most pancreatic cancers are discovered, and patients tend to die within the next two years.
This discovery means that pancreatic cancer is present in the body for much longer than ever imagined, and that future research should focus on finding early biomarkers of this tumor so that treatment could begin long before the cancer ever reaches metastasis.
CANCER TYPE(S)
Pancreatic cancer
WHERE WAS THIS STUDY PUBLISHED?
Nature
Source
Yachida S et al. "Distant metastasis occurs late during the genetic evolution of pancreatic cancer." Nature 467, 1114-1117 (28 October 2010) | doi:10.1038/nature09515.
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