How Pancreatic Cancer Spreads to the Liver.

• Position: EXOSOMES

The precise molecular steps that enable pancreatic cancer to spread to the liver--the event that makes the most-common form of the disease lethal--have been illuminated by an international team led by Weill Cornell Medical College, New York. By understanding this process, investigators say their discovery can lead to targeted treatments that delay metastasis, and could offer clinicians a new biomarker to test for the earliest signs of pancreatic cancer.

Nearly 49,000 people in the U.S. will be diagnosed with pancreatic cancer this year, and more than 40,000 of them will succumb to it, according to estimates from the American Cancer Society, Atlanta, Ga. Pancreatic cancers are among the most-lethal cancers--only six percent of patients survive five years after diagnosis, with the median survival rate being a mere six months.

"What makes this cancer so lethal is that patients don't generally become symptomatic--and as such aren't diagnosed--until the cancer is very advanced and treatment options are limited," explains senior author David Lyden, professor of pediatrics.

The study focuses on the role of small, spherical tumor-secreted packages, called...