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Molecular envoys pave the way for pancreatic cancer to invade the liver

Pancreatic cancer usually spreads to the liver. The identification of signals from cells adjacent to pancreatic tumours that boost liver colonization might suggest ways to block this deadly form of cancer invasion.
  1. Anirban Maitra

    1. Anirban Maitra is in the Sheikh Ahmed Center for Pancreatic Cancer Research, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas 77030, USA.

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Pancreatic cancer is rapidly lethal, and the five-year post-diagnosis survival rate in the United States is 8%1. At diagnosis, the cancer has usually already spread beyond its primary pancreatic site to invade other parts of the body, most commonly the liver2. This renders futile the option of surgically removing the pancreatic tumour to prevent such lethal spread, or metastasis3. Writing in Nature, Lee et al.4 report their identification, in mice and humans, of molecules made in the pancreas that travel to the liver and alter its environment to create conditions that assist cancer-cell invasion.

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Nature 567, 181-182 (2019)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-00710-z

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