Epithelial-To-Mesenchymal Transition in Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma: Fiction or Fact?

Abstract

Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is one of the most aggressive and lethal tumors, representing the fourth most common cause of cancer death in the Western world, with an estimated incidence of more than 40,000 cases per year in the United States. Despite continuous progress in imaging, surgical techniques, intensive care, and chemotherapeutic ap-proaches, the current overall 5-year survival is less than 6%.1,2In carcinoma progression, including PDAC, cancer cells acquire their metastatic phe-notype undergoing a complex step-wise process defined as Epithelial-To-Mesenchymal Transi-tion (EMT), leading to a “phenotypic switch” of epithelial cells to mesenchymal cells.