• Desmoplasia (tumour stroma): The dense scar-like tissue that makes up most of a pancreatic tumour, walling off cancer cells from drugs and immune cells.
• Stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT / SABR): A course of one to five large, pinpoint-accurate radiation doses that destroy a tumour outside the brain almost like surgery, for patients who cannot or prefer not to have an operation.
• Palliation in pancreatic cancer: biliary and duodenal stents, coeliac plexus block, enzymes and cachexia: Most people with pancreatic cancer need treatment for a blocked bile duct, pain, poor digestion or weight loss alongside chemotherapy: a metal stent placed by endoscopy for jaundice, a duodenal stent or bypass for a blocked bowel, an alcohol block of the nerves behind the pancreas for pain, enzyme capsules with every meal, and dietetic support.
• GATA6 as the marker of classical versus basal-like pancreatic cancer: GATA6 is the transcription factor that separates the two pancreatic cancer subtypes that survive every re-analysis: classical tumours express it, basal-like (squamous) tumours have lost it.
• COMPASS: real-time sequencing of advanced pancreatic cancer for treatment selection: COMPASS was the Canadian study that took a fresh biopsy from people about to start chemotherapy for advanced pancreatic cancer, sequenced the whole genome and RNA within the time of a treatment decision, and showed that the basal-like subtype predicts poor response to first-line chemotherapy.
• Locally advanced and locoregional disease: Cancer that has grown beyond its organ into nearby tissue or lymph nodes but has not spread to distant sites.
• Pancreatic cancer: the failed and stopped programmes and why: Pancreatic cancer has a long list of phase 3 trials that added a new drug to standard chemotherapy and found nothing: a stroma-degrading enzyme, an interleukin-10, a stemness inhibitor, a BTK inhibitor, a metabolic inhibitor, an anti-fibrotic antibody, two vaccines and erlotinib in three settings.
• Resectability classes for pancreatic cancer (NCCN anatomical criteria and the 2017 international consensus): Surgeons class a pancreatic cancer as resectable, borderline resectable or locally advanced by how far it wraps around the arteries and veins behind the pancreas on the CT scan, measured in degrees of contact.
• Vascular resection in pancreatic cancer surgery (portal and superior mesenteric vein resection; arterial resection): When a pancreatic cancer touches or narrows the big vein behind the pancreas, surgeons can cut out that segment of vein and rebuild it during the operation, which turns a borderline tumour into a removable one.
• Pancreatic cancer trials open today (registry snapshot and UK sites): Every phase 2 or 3 interventional trial that was recruiting, about to open or still running for pancreatic cancer on ClinicalTrials.gov in September 2026, with the hospitals in the United Kingdom that take part named where the registry lists them.

Biomarker results to ask for: Pancreas-protocol CT with arterial encasement (defines the stage), CA 19-9 at baseline and during induction (normalisation predicts a useful operation), Restaging CT and PET-CT after induction (occult metastases in a share of patients), Germline BRCA1, BRCA2 and PALB2 status (platinum choice), KRAS and other somatic alterations by tissue or plasma sequencing (trial eligibility), Nutritional status, pancreatic exocrine function and glycaemic control.

Scans and tests linked to this cancer: PET/CT, FAPI PET.

Bring copies of scan reports, pathology and blood results, and a list of every medicine and supplement.

• Conversion surgery: Exploration and resection, sometimes with arterial reconstruction, for the minority with stable or responding disease and a normalised CA 19-9 after induction. (Whipple procedure (pancreaticoduodenectomy), Resectable, borderline resectable and unresectable, CA 19-9, Resection margins (R0 / R1 / R2))
• Induction chemotherapy: Modified FOLFIRINOX or gemcitabine plus nab-paclitaxel for four to six months, with biliary stenting, pancreatic enzyme replacement and pain control alongside. (FOLFIRINOX / mFOLFIRINOX, Gemcitabine + nab-paclitaxel, Biliary stenting and drainage, Cancer cachexia)
• Tumour treating fields: Alternating electric fields delivered through skin arrays added to gemcitabine plus nab-paclitaxel (PANOVA-3), approved in 2026. (Tumour treating fields (TTFields), Optune / Optune Pax (TTFields), PANOVA-3, Gemcitabine + nab-paclitaxel)
• Consolidation local therapy: Chemoradiation with capecitabine, stereotactic body radiotherapy or MR-guided ablative radiotherapy after induction chemotherapy for disease that has not spread; LAP07 shows better local control without longer survival. (Chemoradiation (chemoradiotherapy, CRT), SBRT / SABR (stereotactic radiotherapy), MR-guided adaptive radiotherapy, Capecitabine, Hypofractionated radiotherapy, LAP07)
• Ablation: Irreversible electroporation in selected centres after induction chemotherapy; no randomised evidence. (Irreversible electroporation (NanoKnife))
• Progression: Treat as metastatic disease: switch backbone, daraxonrasib after first-line chemotherapy, clinical trials. (NALIRIFOX (liposomal irinotecan + oxaliplatin + 5-FU/LV), Daraxonrasib, RASolute 302)

From the standard of care recorded for this cancer; which apply depends on your stage and biomarkers. Ask which the team recommends and why.