Ron DePinho, Professor of Department of Cancer Biology, Division of Discovery Science at MD Anderson Cancer Center, shared on LinkedIn:
”The ability to target RAS opens an important opportunity in pancreatic cancer: intervening before invasive disease develops.
In a thoughtful Cancer Discovery perspective, Sandra Misale, Neeha Zaidi, Liz Jaffee, Alison Klein, and Laura Wood explore how advances in RAS targeting could enable pancreatic cancer interception.
The biological rationale is compelling.
KRAS mutations are already present in pancreatic cancers, potentially creating a window in which targeting a cancer-driving pathway could prevent progression to invasive disease.
For those of us working on pancreatic cancer, this is an exciting extension of the therapeutic advances in established cancers now emerging from decades of research into RAS biology.
I see three priorities for translating this opportunity into clinical benefit: Identify whom to treat: determine which individuals and precursor lesions carry sufficient risk to justify intervention.
Define how to intervene: establish the timing, duration, and tolerability needed for an interception strategy. Demonstrate meaningful benefit: show that intervention reduces progression to invasive cancer, beyond producing a molecular response.
The threshold for treating someone who may never develop cancer must be especially rigorous. That makes risk assessment, biomarkers, and carefully designed prospective trials central to this effort. Preventing pancreatic cancer from becoming invasive would be a profound advance. This perspective offers a timely rationale for pursuing that goal.
Congratulations to the Johns Hopkins Hospital team for advancing this important discussion.”
You can also read:
AMPLIFY-7P Trial: Targeting KRAS With Immunotherapy in Resected Pancreatic Cancer
