Abstract
BACKGROUND: Pancreatic adenocarcinoma is an extremely aggressive tumor which is supposed to become the second deadliest malignancy in 2030. For a long time the possibilities to treat this complex disease were very limited. SUMMARY: In the last years the development of new chemotherapeutic regimens has led to a better outcome in the ad-juvant, neoadjuvant, and palliative setting. Furthermore, progress in sequencing technologies has enabled a detailed investigation of the genetic alterations, mutational burden, expression pattern, and stroma composition in pancreatic cancer and led to the identification of subtypes of this disease. MESSAGES: This analysis will increase our understanding of tumor heterogeneity and hopefully translate into new potential targets, biomarkers, and the development of individual therapeutic approaches in the future.