Towards personalized treatment for pancreatic cancer patients using genomics and transcriptomics - the PEGASUS project

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), the most prevalent form of pancreatic cancer, still has a dismal prognosis despite of improvements in treatment options. Response and survival rates vary highly between patients, and good predictors for survival are lacking. In general, treatment decisions are solely based on the condition of the patient and not on prognostic or predictive biomarkers. In this thesis, the study question was whether the implementation of molecular diagnostics (i.e., RNA sequencing and whole genome sequencing (WGS)) could provide relevant prognostic and predictive information to patients and treating physicians, helping them to make treatment decisions and answer the following questions: “Will this treatment increase my life expectancy long enough to make worthwhile for me?” and “Are there potential alternative treatment options for me?”.