Glycosylation alterations in acute pancreatitis and pancreatic cancer: CA19-9 expression is involved in pathogenesis and maybe targeted by therapy

Dear editor, we have read with great interest the basic research paper entitled ‘The glycan CA19-9 promotes pancreatitis and pancreatic cancer in mice’, published recently by Engle et al. in the Science journal (1). This paper underline that CA 19-9 is not only the most used and well-known tumor biomarker for pancreatic cancer (2), but an active player in the acute pancreatitis and pancreatic cancer pathogenesis, and a potential target for future therapies (1).