Pancreatic cancer 

Pancreatic cancer is a relatively rare disease, but has a very low survival rate.
One reason for the high mortality rate is the fact that the pancreas is located in the most posterior part of the abdomen, therefore the tumor can expand and progress during a long period of time without causing any symptoms. In most cases, when symptoms like pain / jaundice / loss of weight appear the tumor already has gone outside the pancreas tissue and invaded into the bile ducts and nearby blood vessels, significantly limiting surgical options.

When the tumor is diagnosed in early stages, an extensive operation can be done in order to remove it, named the Whipple procedure. Afterwards and also in cases when the patient is not suitable for operation, chemotherapy is given in order to stop disease progression and to prolong as much as possible the patients survival.

Since the treatment is given mostly in advanced stages of disease: there is significant importance to tailor the best suitable treatment to the patient in order to achieve maximal efficacy with minimal adverse effects.

Target Now test helps in such cases, like in other tumors, in matching the best suited biological and chemotherapy treatments to the molecular profiling of the tumor cells.