Abstract

In spite of rapid progress in translational cancer research and advent of a few treatment regimens that revolutionized patient care in most of the tumors, any meaningful progress in the treatment of pancreatic cancer (PC) remains elusive. Lack of definitive early symptoms, absence of reliable biomarker and failure to understand PC biology combined with a complex PC tumor microenvironment (TME) slowed progress of therapeutics development to treat PC. One of the areas of PC biology that has been gaining a lot of attention of late is the extent of tumor hypoxia or lack of oxygen that is associated with PC progression. The goal of this mini review is to emphasize the importance of hypoxia in PC. Our improving understanding of hypoxia and how to make hypoxia amenable to targeted therapies further opens up new possibility to manage PC progression. We are focusing on a novel finding where a natural anticoagulant, protein S (PS) shows promise to control PC.

Keywords: Tumor microenvironment; Hypoxia; Protein S

Abbreviations: PC: Pancreatic Cancer; TME: Tumor Microenvironment; PS: Protein S