Elisa Giovannetti

• MD, PhD
• Professor (Associate) at VU University Medical Center and AIRC Start-Up Unit, University of Pisa

Evaluation of: Lubezky N, Loewenstein S, Ben-Haim M et al. MicroRNA expression signatures in intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasm of the pancreas. Surgery doi:10.1016/j.surg.2012.11.016 (2013) (Epub ahead of print). Pancreatic cysts are now being detected more frequently owing to increased recognition and the liberal use of cross-sectional imagi...

In the original publication [...]

There is growing evidence suggesting a strong association between members of the oral microbiota and various types of cancer, including oral cancer, colorectal cancer, esophageal squamous cell carcinoma, and pancreatic cancer. Periodontal diseases closely associated with pathogenic bacteria in the oral cavity have been shown to be correlated with t...

Combined hepatocellular-cholangiocarcinoma (cHCC-CCA) is a rare primary liver cancer, with intermediate biological characteristics between hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and cholangiocarcinoma (CCA). Given its rarity and the lack of robust data from randomized clinical trials, treatment is not standardized, and the choice on how to best manage the...

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Background Current diagnostic imaging modalities have limited ability to differentiate between malignant and benign pancreaticobiliary disease, and lack accuracy in detecting lymph node metastases. ¹⁸ F-Prostate-Specific Membrane Antigen (PSMA) PET/CT is an imaging modality used for staging of prostate cancer, but has incidentally also identified P...

The tumor microenvironment (TME) is integral to cancer progression, impacting metastasis and treatment response. It consists of diverse cell types, extracellular matrix components, and signaling molecules that interact to promote tumor growth and therapeutic resistance. Elucidating the intricate interactions between cancer cells and the TME is cruc...

Introduction: Colorectal cancer (CRC) is among the lethal cancers, indicating the need for the identification of novel biomarkers for the detection of patients in earlier stages. RNA and microRNA sequencing were analyzed using bioinformatics and machine learning algorithms to identify differentially expressed genes (DEGs), followed by validation in...

Pancreatic cancer is an aggressive tumor with dismal prognosis. Neural invasion is one of the pathological hallmarks of pancreatic cancer. Peripheral nerves can modulate the phenotype and behavior of the malignant cells, as well as of different components of the tumor microenvironment, and thus affect tumor growth and metastasis. From a clinical po...

Neural invasion is one of the most common routes of invasion in pancreatic cancer and it is responsible for the high rate of tumor recurrence after surgery and the pain generation associated with pancreatic cancer. Several molecules implicated in neural invasion are also responsible for pain onset including NGF belonging to the family of neutrophin...

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is an aggressive disease with an extremely poor prognosis. The most common complications after a pancreaticoduodenectomy (PD) include surgical site infection (SSI), postoperative pancreatic fistula (POPF), and delayed gastric emptying (DGE). The potential role and mechanisms of microbial colonization of key s...

Background: Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma acquired resistance to chemotherapy poses a major limitation to patient survival. Despite understanding some biological mechanisms of chemoresistance, much about those mechanisms remains to be uncovered. Mechanobiology, which studies the physical properties of cells, holds promise as a potential target f...

Introduction: After years of treatment stagnation in biliary tract cancers (BTC), there has been a notable shift with the emergence of targeted therapies and immunotherapy, leading to substantial progress in tackling this aggressive disease. Areas covered: We provide a comprehensive overview of the target therapies that are already part of the t...

Introduction: NSCLC is the leading cause of cancer-related deaths globally, with a low survival rate primarily due to NSCLC frequently becoming chemoresistant. Focal adhesion kinase (FAK) is a non-receptor tyrosine kinase involved in pathways regulating multiple processes in the cell, including survival, migration, and the TME, that contribute to...

Introduction: Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is the third-leading cause of tumor-related deaths. The gut microbiota has gained attention in cancer treatment, due to its influence on the immune system and drug activity. Areas covered: Tintelnot and collaborators highlight distinct gut microbiota composition in metastatic PDAC (mPDAC) pat...

Purpose Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is among the most aggressive malignancies. Our previous work revealed Chitinase 3-like 1 (CHI3L1) involvement in PDAC resistance to gemcitabine, identifying it as a promising therapeutic target. Here, we aimed to identify putative CHI3L1 inhibitors and to investigate their chemosensitizing potential i...

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is an aggressive cancer with poor prognosis and rising global deaths. Late diagnosis, due to absent early symptoms and biomarkers, limits treatment mainly to chemotherapy, which soon encounters resistance. PDAC treatment innovation is hampered by its complex and heterogeneous resistant nature, including mutat...

Background L-Leucovorin (l-LV; 5-formyltetrahydrofolate, folinic acid) is a precursor for 5,10-methylenetetrahydrofolate (5,10-CH2-THF), which is important for the potentiation of the antitumor activity of 5-fluorouracil (5FU). LV is also used to rescue antifolate toxicity. LV is commonly administered as a racemic mixture of its l-LV and d-LV stere...

Focal Adhesion Kinase (FAK) is a non-receptor protein tyrosine kinase that plays a crucial role in various oncogenic processes related to cell adhesion, migration, proliferation, and survival. The strategic targeting of FAK represents a burgeoning approach to address resistant tumours, such as pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). Herein, we rep...

Background Biliary obstruction can be due to both malignant and benign pancreaticobiliary disease. Currently, there are no biomarkers that can accurately help make this distinction. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are stable molecules in tissue and biofluids that are commonly deregulated in cancer. The MIRABILE study aimed to identify miRNAs in bile that can di...

Background: Liver resection is a critical surgical procedure for treating various hepatic pathologies. Minimally invasive approaches have gradually gained importance, and, in recent years, the introduction of robotic surgery has transformed the surgical landscape, providing potential advantages such as enhanced precision and stable ergonomic vision...

Background Distinguishing benign from malignant pancreaticobiliary disease is challenging because of the absence of reliable biomarkers. Circulating extracellular vesicles (EVs) have emerged as functional mediators between cells. Their cargos, including microRNAs (miRNAs), are increasingly acknowledged as an important source of potential biomarkers...

Macrophages infiltrating tumour tissues or residing in the microenvironment of solid tumours are known as tumour-associated macrophages (TAMs). These specialized immune cells play crucial roles in tumour growth, angiogenesis, immune regulation, metastasis, and chemoresistance. TAMs encompass various subpopulations, primarily classified into M1 and...

Background Pancreatic cancer, specifically pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), continues to pose a significant clinical and scientific challenge. The most significant finding of recent years is that PDAC tumours harbour their specific microbiome, which differs amongst tumour entities and is distinct from healthy tissue. This review aims to eva...

Macrophages infiltrating tumour tissues or residing in the microenvironment of solid tumours are known as tumour-associated macrophages (TAMs). These specialized immune cells play crucial roles in tumour growth, angiogenesis, immune regulation, metastasis, and chemoresistance. TAMs encompass various subpopulations, primarily classified into M1 and...

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) poses significant challenges in terms of prognosis and treatment. Recent research has identified splicing deregulation as a new cancer hallmark. Herein, we investigated the largely uncharacterized alternative splicing profile and the key splicing factor SF3B1 in PDAC pancreatic cells and tissues as a potentia...

Focal Adhesion Kinase (FAK) is a non-receptor protein tyrosine kinase that plays a crucial role in various oncogenic processes related to cell adhesion, migration, proliferation, and survival. The strategic targeting of FAK represents a burgeoning approach to address resistant tumors, such as pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). Herein, we repo...

Introduction: Despite the considerable progress made in cancer treatment through the development of target therapies, pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) continues to exhibit resistance to this category of drugs. As a result, chemotherapy combination regimens remain the primary treatment approach for this aggressive cancer. Areas covered: In...

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) has a dismal prognosis with a 5‐year survival of less than 10%. More knowledge of the immune response developed in patients with PDAC is pivotal to develop better combination immune therapies to improve clinical outcome. In this study, we used mass cytometry time‐of‐flight to undertake an in‐depth characteriz...

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is a devastating disease with a limited number of known driver mutations but considerable cancer cell heterogeneity. Phosphoproteomics provides a direct read‐out of aberrant signaling and the resultant clinically relevant phenotype. Mass spectrometry (MS)‐based proteomics and phosphoproteomics were applied to...

Hydrogen therapy has emerged as a possible approach for both preventing and treating cancer. Cancers are often associated with oxidative stress and chronic inflammation. Hydrogen, with its unique physiological functions and characteristics, exhibits antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and anti-apoptotic properties, making it an attractive candidate for...

Background: Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) acquired resistance to chemotherapy poses a major limitation to patient survival. Despite understanding of some biological mechanisms of chemoresistance, much of those mechanisms remain to be uncovered. Mechanobiology, which studies physical properties of cells, holds promise as a potential target...

Despite recent advances in cancer immunotherapy, pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) remains unresponsive due to an immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment, which is characterized by the abundance of cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs). Once identified, CAF-mediated immune inhibitory mechanisms could be exploited for cancer immunotherapy. Sig...

Colorectal cancer (CRC) imposes a significant healthcare burden globally, prompting the quest for innovative biomarkers to enhance diagnostic and therapeutic strategies. This study investigates the G-protein signaling modulator (GPSM) family across several cancers and presents a comprehensive pan-cancer analysis of the GPSM2 gene across several gas...

Introduction: Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is a devastating disease, commonly characterized by multiple aberrant signaling. Phosphoproteomics provides a direct read-out of these complex signaling networks and the resultant clinically relevant phenotype, as well as a functional scaffold to identify new targets. In the absence of an oncoge...

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma is one of the most lethal solid malignancies, characterized by its aggressiveness and metastatic potential, with a 5-year survival rate of only 13%. Progress in the management of metastatic disease has been modest. A robust connection between nervous system and tumor progression exists, with prominent neural alterat...

Background Novel biomarkers, such as plasma microRNAs (miRs), are needed to help guide clinical decision-making for the type of chemotherapy to use in patients with advanced pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). This study assessed the ability of plasma miRs to predict optimal treatment response from FOLFIRINOX or gemcitabine-nab-paclitaxel in t...

Introduction: Treatment resistance poses a significant obstacle in oncology, especially in biliary tract cancer (BTC) and pancreatic cancer (PC). Current therapeutic options include chemotherapy, targeted therapy, and immunotherapy. Resistance to these treatments may arise due to diverse molecular mechanisms, such as genetic and epigenetic modific...

Increasing preclinical and clinical evidence has positioned high-dose vitamin C as a promising anti-cancer treatment that merits more clinical attention. Multiple cytotoxicity mechanisms have been described, including pro-oxidant effects. To contribute to the preclinical understanding of the broad pan-cancer effects of high-dose vitamin C in a glob...

Increasing preclinical and clinical evidence has positioned high-dose vitamin C as a promising anti-cancer treatment that merits more clinical attention. Multiple cytotoxicity mechanisms have been described, including pro-oxidant effects. To contribute to the preclinical understanding of the broad pan-cancer effects of high-dose vitamin C in a glob...

The majority of patients with resected stage II‐IIIA non‐small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) are treated with platinum‐based adjuvant chemotherapy (ACT) in a one‐size‐fits‐all approach. However, a significant number of patients do not derive clinical benefit, and no predictive patient selection biomarker is currently available. Using mass spectrometry‐b...

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is among the leading causes of cancer-related deaths worldwide. Focal adhesion kinase (FAK) is a nonreceptor tyrosine kinase often overexpressed in PDAC. FAK has been linked to cell migration, survival, proliferation, angiogenesis and adhesion. This review first highlights the chemoresistant nature of PDAC. S...

Simple Summary This manuscript discusses the ongoing challenge of cancer as a leading global cause of death despite advancements in therapies. It highlights the role of hyperthermia (HT) as a modality in cancer treatment, particularly its effectiveness as a sensitizer and its impact on cancer–immunity processes and oncogenic pathways. The article n...

Background Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is one of the deadliest types of cancer and the chemotherapies such as gemcitabine/nab-paclitaxel are confronted with intrinsic or acquired resistance. The aim of this study was to investigate mechanisms underlying paclitaxel resistance in PDAC and explore strategies to overcome it. Methods Three...

Increasing preclinical and clinical evidence has positioned high-dose vitamin C as a promising anti-cancer treatment that merits more clinical attention. Multiple cytotoxicity mechanisms have been described, including pro-oxidant effects. To contribute to the preclinical understanding of the broad pan-cancer effects of high-dose vitamin C in a glob...

Differentiating between pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) and cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) is crucial for the appropriate course of treatment, especially with advancements in the role of neoadjuvant chemotherapies for PDAC, compared to CCA. Furthermore, benign pancreaticobiliary diseases can mimic malignant disease, and indeterminate lesions may...

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) has a very poor survival. The intra-tumoural microbiome can influence pancreatic tumourigenesis and chemoresistance and, therefore, patient survival. The role played by bile microbiota in PDAC is unknown. We aimed to define bile microbiome signatures that can effectively distinguish malignant from benign tumo...

Introduction: Effective (neo) adjuvant chemotherapy for cholangiocarcinoma is lacking due to chemoresistance and the absence of predictive biomarkers. Human equilibrative nucleoside transporter 1 (hENT1) has been described as a potential prognostic and predictive biomarker. In this study, the potential of rabbit-derived (SP120) and murine-derived (...

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is associated with a very poor prognosis. Therefore, there has been a focus on identifying new biomarkers for its early diagnosis and the prediction of patient survival. Genome-wide RNA and microRNA sequencing, bioinformatics and Machine Learning approaches to identify differentially expressed genes (DEGs), f...

The marine environment is an excellent source of molecules that have a wide structural diversity and a variety of biological activities. Many marine natural products (MNPs) have been established as leads for anticancer drug discovery. Most of these compounds are alkaloids, including several chemical subclasses. In this review, we focus on the bis-i...

Introduction: Delayed gastric emptying (DGE) is a frequent complication after pancreatoduodenectomy, especially after pylorus preservation (Pp). We evaluated the effect of a fully robotic approach with da Vinci Xi on DGE after PpPD. Methods: Open and robotic PDs were performed in 353 and 50 cases, respectively, from January 2009 to March 2022. W...

Importance: Accurate risk prediction models using routinely measured biomarkers-eg, carbohydrate antigen 19-9 (CA19-9) and bilirubin serum levels-for pancreatic cancer could facilitate early detection of pancreatic cancer and prevent potentially unnecessary diagnostic tests for patients at low risk. An externally validated model using CA19-9 and b...

Simple Summary Colorectal cancer (CRC) is among the leading causes of cancer-related deaths. Despite extensive efforts, a limited number of biomarkers and therapeutic targets have been identified. Therefore, novel prognostic and therapeutic targets are needed in the management of patients and to increase the efficacy of current therapy. The majorit...

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the 2nd leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide, primarily due to the development of metastatic disease. The liver is the most frequently affected site. The metastatic cascade relies on a complex interaction between the immune system, tumor, and distant organs. Communication between the tumor and the metastatic s...

Aims MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small non-coding RNAs that regulate gene expression at the post-transcriptional level. They are commonly deregulated in cancer and are incredibly stable molecules in tissues and biofluids. Accurate identification of a malignant biliary stricture can sometimes be challenging. We aimed to identify miRNAs in the bile that a...

Cytochrome P450 (CYP450) enzyme has been shown to be expressed in colorectal cancer (CRC) and its dysregulation is linked to tumor progression and a poor prognosis. Here we investigated the therapeutic potential of targeting CYP450 using lopinavir/ritonavir in CRC. The integrative systems biology method and RNAseq were utilized to investigate the d...

There is a complex interaction between pro-tumoural and anti-tumoural networks in the tumour microenvironment (TME). Throughout tumourigenesis, communication between malignant cells and various cells of the TME contributes to metabolic reprogramming. Tumour Dysregulation of metabolic pathways offer an evolutional advantage in the TME and enhance th...

The term small extracellular vesicle (sEV) is a comprehensive term that includes any type of cell-derived, membrane-delimited particle that has a diameter < 200 nm, and which includes exosomes and smaller microvesicles. sEVs transfer bioactive molecules between cells and are crucial for cellular homeostasis and particularly during tumor development...

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is a highly aggressive disease with poor prognosis due to early metastasis, low diagnostic rates at early stages, and resistance to current therapeutic regimens. Despite numerous studies and clinical trials, the mortality rate for PDAC has shown limited improvement. Therefore, there is a pressing need to atta...

A new series of nortopsentin analogs, in which the central imidazole ring of the natural lead was replaced by a 1,3,4-oxadiazole or 1,3,4-thiadiazole moiety, was efficiently synthesized. The antiproliferative activity of all synthesized derivatives was evaluated against five pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) cell lines, a primary culture and...