Making Progress

University of California San Francisco scientists have found a link between inflammation and pancreatic cancer.  A link has been found between molecules found in an inflamed pancreas and the early formation of pancreatic cancer.--What does this mean you ask?  This discovery may help scientists identify new ways to detect, monitor, and treat pancreatic cancer.
The UCSF team, led by Matthias Hebrok, PhD. discovered two molecular "signals" produced abundantly in the pancreas during inflammation--a protein named Stat3--helps to initiate the early stages of pancreatic cancer.  Another protein, called MMP7, appears to affect metastasis, or the spreading of the tumor.
In lab experiments, Hebrok and colleagues showed that blocking these proteins in mice shrunk the number of lesions that can lead to cancer and reduced the extent of cancer metastisis.
Their experiments also showed MMP7 may be a clinical indicator of the pancreatic cancer stage, possibly making it useful as a marker for more aggressive disease.

Hopefully, these scientists will continue making progress and help find a way to treat, detect, and monitor this terrible disease.