Significance of microRNA-based biomarkers for pancreatic cancer

Pancreatic cancer (PC) is an extremely aggressive malignancy with one of the worst prognoses of all cancers. Currently, it is the tenth most commonly diagnosed malignancy and fourth leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States. The National Cancer Institute (NCI) in the United States estimates that 48,960 Americans will be newly diagnosed with this cancer in 2015, of which 40,560 deaths due to this lethal malignancy. Among clinical cases, 74% of patients die within the first year of diagnosis, and ~94% of patient deaths occur within 5 years of diagnosis. Alarmingly, the changing demographics and average annual percentage alterations in incidence and death rate suggest that PC will surpass breast, prostate, and colorectal cancers and will be the second leading cause of cancer related deaths by 2030 (1). Even after intense research on PC, the mortality rate has been unaltered/increased whereas, death rates for other malignancies are reducing over past decades, placing it among the most lethal malignancies. Major barriers to the better prognoses of PC are late detection, inherent resistance to chemotherapy, radiotherapy and relapse of the disease.