Chemoprevention of pancreatic cancer: ready for the clinic?

Advances in our molecular, clinical, and epidemiologic understanding of the risk and development of pancreatic cancer offer hope for preventing this disease, which is largely intractable once developed. This perspective on provocative, genetically engineered mouse model work reported by Mohammed et al. (beginning on page 1417 in this issue of the journal) examines the prospects for pancreatic cancer chemoprevention with epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKI). Despite having limited value in advanced pancreatic cancer, EGFR TKIs show promise in the setting of early pancreatic carcinogenesis.