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Pancreatic cancer in 2015

Precision medicine in pancreatic cancer — fact or fiction?

Late diagnosis and an inability to personalize treatment are major problems preventing reductions in pancreatic cancer mortality. In 2015, the identification of a highly discriminatory exosomal biomarker, culture systems that recapitulate human disease and new methods of analysing large data sets to identify prognostic markers have improved the future outlook for patients with this cancer.

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Figure 1: Complementary experimental systems can elucidate diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers for pancreatic cancer.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are supported by funding from the Deutsche Krebshilfe / Dr. Mildred-Scheel-Stiftung (109102), the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG GRK1947-A3, MA 4115/1-2/3) and the European Union (EU-FP-7: EPC-TM and EU-FP7-REGPOT-2010-1).

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Correspondence to Julia Mayerle.

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Seufferlein, T., Mayerle, J. Precision medicine in pancreatic cancer — fact or fiction?. Nat Rev Gastroenterol Hepatol 13, 74–75 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrgastro.2015.215

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