A team of researchers at the University of Glasgow has classified four types of pancreatic cancer. They acknowledged this fact after studying several pancreatic cancer tumor cases. Their findings will assist in developing better diagnoses and treatment in future, the study team claimed. The results of the research were published in the journal Nature.

Every year, an estimated 8,800 people are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in the UK. Only 20% of the patients manage to survive more than a year, while a small proportion, say less than 5% could make it to more than five years. Only 1% of them remain alive after 10 years of diagnose.

Currently, not much is known about most effective treatment against pancreatic cancer. This new insight could offer great benefit in finding answers for several questions that medical care experts face.

For conducting the study, the researchers examined 456 pancreatic cancer tumors; they observed that this cancer could be categorized into four different categories. These sub categories include squamous, pancreatic progenitor, immunogenic and ADEX.

“This study demonstrates that pancreatic cancer is better considered as four separate diseases, with different survival rates, treatments and underlying genetics. Knowing which sub-type a patient has would allow a doctor to provide a more accurate prognosis and treatment recommendations”, said Professor Sean Grimmond, who led the study.

This discovery paves way for techniques that could help in offering right treatment to right patients. This is important for pancreatic patients to be treated well straight after diagnosis for a better chance of survival.

The classification as different types of pancreatic cancer will also provide broad understanding of nature of the disease. More research in this area in future could help treating the disease as early as possible.