PTEN and pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma: In that respect, our group has recently identified PTEN-loss status as a predictive biomarker of synergistic pharmacologic interactions between mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK)- and phosphoinositide-3-kinase (PI3K)-inhibitors, in several preclinical models in vitro; when applied to PC the combination of data obtained in vitro and the relative rarity of complete loss of PTEN function in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) could have predicted the clinical failure of the MEK/AKT combination in unselected PC patients [9,10].