(Nature) – With prospects for new treatments at an all-time high, researchers are looking for ways to boost survival by treating the disease early.

Armed with new tools and fresh optimism, researchers seeking to subdue pancreatic cancer — one of the world’s deadliest — are chasing a radical strategy: cancer interception.

In this approach, tissues that are growing abnormally are treated to keep them from turning cancerous and spreading. Interception is already being trialled for breast and skin cancers, among others. But now the success of a new drug that quashes pancreatic tumours is raising scientists’ hopes that interception could succeed even for this recalcitrant cancer. (Read More)