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The first study in the world to examine scar tissue in human pancreatic cancer in detail revealed a range of scar tissue types that could help clinicians predict which patients will respond best to specific treatments.
The research, led by Queen Mary University in London, the London Cancer Research Institute, the Beaujon University Hospital (INSERM) in Paris and the Barts Health NHS Trust, could lead to tailor-made treatments, including immunotherapies, which target the powerful scar. tissue wall that protects the cancer and makes it a difficult disease to treat.
Professor Hemant Kocher, co-principal investigator at Queen Mary University London and Barts Health NHS Trust, said: "We are excited to uncover new potential targets for the treatment of patients with pancreatic cancer Scar tissue is a huge obstacle in the treatment of pancreatic cancer, it can form up to 90% of the tumor volume, but it is still very poorly understood.
"Our current mission is to fully understand how scar tissue influences cancer behavior so that we can develop more effective treatments for patients with this disease, where unfortunately very few people succeed."
Every year, around 9,800 people in the United Kingdom are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Scar tissue is a particular problem in the disease, where it constitutes the largest proportion of tumor volume among all types of cancer.
Intense scar tissue forms a protective wall around cancer, impeding treatments such as chemotherapy, immunotherapy or radiation therapy. This helps to make it a particularly aggressive disease, with the lowest survival rate of all cancers – less than five percent of patients survive for five years or more.
By examining pancreatic cancer samples from 16 patients in the UK, Germany and Australia and 50 surgically resected tumors in France, the study published in the Pathology Journal, now shows that there are at least four different types of scar tissue and that each can influence cancer differently.
Dr. Anguraj Sadanandam, co-principal investigator, team leader in Systems and Precision Anticancer Medicine at the London Cancer Institute, said: "We used a complex computer badysis to examine scar tissue dense that makes pancreatic cancer so difficult to treat.
"The identification of the four types of scar tissue in our new study will help us better understand how scar tissue and tumor cells interact in pancreatic cancer and offer new insights into how to fight this disease." devastating.
"Our work could help pave the way for new personalized medicines, so that in the future, people with pancreatic cancer can be offered the treatments most likely to be treated." to be beneficial. "
According to early indications, one of four types of scar tissue could be particularly attractive to immune cells – cells that fight infections – so future work could determine if patients with this type of scar tissue could potentially benefit from immunotherapy.
Determining what type of scar tissue is predominant in a patient can tell clinicians which patients will be successful with treatment and who will not. The work opens the way for researchers to develop new treatments tailored for a particular patient.
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