Erxi Wu, assistant professor of pharmaceutical sciences, has been invited to write a review article for the journal, Current Pharmaceutical Design. The article, “Advances in Biomarker Research for Pancreatic Cancer,” will be published in a thematic issue focusing on targeted therapy for pancreatic cancer.
According to Wu and his co-authors, pancreatic cancer is one of the leading causes for cancer-related deaths in the United States. The disease is diagnosed at its later stage because of the lack in early symptoms, which contributes to its high mortality. The only current curative approach to tackle this disease is by surgical resection. The complete removal of the tumor mass is difficult due to its invasive and metastatic nature. As a consequence, there is relapse because of drug resistance or presence of cancer stem cells that eventually leads to the death of patients. To improve the survival rate, early detection of pancreatic cancer is critical.
“This review aims to provide an overview of the biomarker research in pancreatic cancer. CA 19-9, a serum carbohydrate antigen, is the only biomarker available today with approximately 90 percent specificity to pancreatic cancer. However, routine use of CA 19-9 for assessing prognosis and monitoring patients with diagnosed pancreatic cancer is unproven at present. New biomarkers with high specificity to pancreatic cancer and advances in technologies for detecting these biomarkers are hence needed,” Wu said. Kruttika Bhat, a doctoral student, and Fengfei Wang, research associate, both in Wu’s lab, share the first authorship for the article.
Current Pharmaceutical Design is published by Bentham Science Publishers and abstracted/indexed in a number of major abstracting/indexing agencies with Impact Factor: 4.414 (2009 SCI Journal Citation Reports), ranking 29th among 236 pharmacology and pharmacy journals. The “theme issues” contain reviews in important fields of current research activity, such as modern drug design including medicinal chemistry, pharmacology, drug targets and disease mechanism, written by eminent experts in the field. The aim of the journal is to provide readers with comprehensive accounts of recent developments in the frontier areas of the field. For more information, visit benthamscience.com/cpd.