Biomarker-Based Therapy in Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma: An Emerging Reality?

Abstract

Over the last decade many of the major solid organ cancers have seen improvements in survival due to development of novel therapeutics and corresponding biomarkers that predict treatment efficacy or resistance. In contrast, in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) favorable outcomes remain challenging, in part related to the lack of validated biomarkers for patient and treatment selection and thus optimal clinical decision-making. Nonetheless, increasingly therapeutic development for PDAC is accompanied by bioassays to evaluate response and study mechanism of actions with a corresponding increase in the number of trials in mid to late-stage with integrated biomarkers. Additionally, blood based biomarkers that provide a measure of disease activity and allow for minimally invasive tumor analyses are emerging, including circulating tumor DNA, exosomes and circulating tumor cells. In this article, we will review potential biomarkers for currently approved therapies as well as emerging biomarkers for therapeutics under development.