Treatment of metastatic pancreatic cancer: 25 years of innovation with little progress for patients

Although recent years have seen substantial improvements in survival for patients with several advanced solid cancers, survival of those diagnosed with pancreatic cancer remains dismal.1 Globally, pancreatic cancer is the seventh leading cause of cancer death; however, in many high-income countries it is now the third leading cause of cancer-related death, behind lung cancer and colorectal cancer.1 Despite an explosion of clinical trials and multiple newly approved treatments over the past three decades, median survival for patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer remains less than 1 year.