One universal truth about cancer is that the later it’s detected, the harder it is to treat. Pancreatic cancer is one form of the disease that is almost always found when it’s advanced, making it an exceptional challenge. Because it’s rarely caught early in its development, this also means that researchers know less about what drives its formation and spread than they do with many other kinds of tumors.

Understanding how a cancer develops and grows, however, has important implications. It allows researchers to create better targeted therapies and develop better detection and screening methods. Now a study led by Memorial Sloan Kettering physician-scientist Christine Iacobuzio-Donahue is shedding new light on a phenomenon that sometimes leads to pancreatic cancer. The results were published September 3, 2018, in Nature.

Read more

Sidestepping Rectal Cancer Surgery with Total Neoadjuvant Therapy

Total neoadjuvant therapy is a viable treatment strategy for patients with locally advanced rectal cancer and is associated with the potential to sidestep surgical treatment.