Table 1.

Frequently used animal models of pancreatic cancer

Animal model	Advantages	Drawbacks
Cell‐line‐based xenografts	Easy to perform, especially when s.c. inoculated Short experiment duration Comparison with in vitro results is intuitive	Often lacks stroma Immunological involvement is difficult to assess because of use of immunodeficient mice Cell lines may not faithfully represent cancer cell population found in human primary tumors
Genetically engineered mouse models (GEMM)	Recapitulates human histopathology well Well characterized and reproducible	Expensive Time‐consuming
Patient‐derived xenograft (PDX) models	Recapitulates human histopathology well Patient‐specific mechanisms may be addressed	Engraftment efficiency is not high and may select for aggressive tumors Labor intensive Expensive Reproducibility may become a concern as a result of patient specificity