Viral therapy for pancreatic cancer: Tackle the bad guys with poison

Pancreatic cancer is one of the most devastating diseases with very poor prognosis. Only a small proportion is curable by surgical resection, whilst standard chemotherapy for patients with advanced disease has only modest effect with substantial toxicity. Therefore, there is an urgent need for the development of novel therapeutic approaches to improve the patient outcome. Recently the viral therapy is emerging as a novel effective therapeutic approach for cancer with the potential to selectively treat both primary tumor and metastatic lesions. This review provides an overview of the current status of viral treatment for pancreatic cancer, both in the laboratories and in clinical settings.

► Pancreatic cancer is a devastating disease with very poor prognosis.
► The viral therapy is emerging as a novel effective approach to treat both primary and metastatic lesions.
► The virus therapy holds great promise to treat pancreatic cancer.
► More efforts are necessary to maximize the benefits for it’s clinical application.