Could Protons and Carbon Ions Be the Silver Bullets Against Pancreatic Cancer?

• Main Authors: Camille Huart, Jia-Wei Chen, Benjamin Le Calvé, Carine Michiels, Anne-Catherine Wéra
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2020-07-01
• Series: International Journal of Molecular Sciences
• Subjects: pancreatic cancer; protons; carbon ions; radioresistance; chemoresistance; targeted combination
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/21/13/4767

Pancreatic cancer is a very aggressive cancer type associated with one of the poorest prognostics. Despite several clinical trials to combine different types of therapies, none of them resulted in significant improvements for patient survival. Pancreatic cancers demonstrate a very broad panel of resistance mechanisms due to their biological properties but also their ability to remodel the tumour microenvironment. Radiotherapy is one of the most widely used treatments against cancer but, up to now, its impact remains limited in the context of pancreatic cancer. The modern era of radiotherapy proposes new approaches with increasing conformation but also more efficient effects on tumours in the case of charged particles. In this review, we highlight the interest in using charged particles in the context of pancreatic cancer therapy and the impact of this alternative to counteract resistance mechanisms.