Scientists in Oregon have developed a new test for pancreatic cancer that only uses a small sample … [+]
A new blood test could diagnose pancreatic cancer much earlier, which improves survival rates for people with the disease.
Pancreas ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is the most common type of pancreatic cancer and makes more than good than 80% of all cases of the disease. Although it is rarer than many types of cancer, including lung, chest and colorectal, Pancreatic cancer explains the fourth most deaths of any cancer worldwide and the prognosis is gloomy, with alone 13% of people Survive 5 years or more after diagnosis. Almost 40,000 dead From pancreas cancer is only found in the United States every year.
A large part of the reason for this bad prognosis is that pancreatic cancer is often diagnosed at a late stage when it has spread outside the pancreas, sometimes to distant places in the body. As with most types of cancer, it becomes much more difficult to treat as soon as the tumor has spread.
“Liquid biopsy” tests that use a sample of easy -to -do physical liquids such as blood or urine have become a popular area of innovation in biotech in recent years, especially with early detection of cancer or monitoring of treatment response. Some liquid biopsy look for small fragments of genetic material, which are released by tumors in the bloodstream, but others look for levels of proteins, enzymes or other metabolites.
Results of the new blood-based test called “PAC-mann” were published in the magazine Science Translational Medicine. The test detects the activity of enzymes mentioned in the blood of people with pancreatic cancer. The researchers validated the test for more than 350 blood samples of people with and without pancreatic cancer, finding the test showed the ability to distinguish blood from people with pancreatic cancer from healthy people and also people with non-cancer-like pancreatic illness, 98% of the time .
Jared Fischer, Ph.D., Left, and Jose Luis Montoya Mira, Ph.D., researchers of cancer at OHSU have … [+]
“The problem with pancreatic cancer is that we often catch it too late,” said Jared Fischer, PhD, main author of the work and assistant professor of molecular and medical genetics at Knight Cancer Institute, Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU), Portland, OR . “Our goal with PAC-mann is to give clinicians a tool that can detect the disease much earlier, when more treatment options are available and there is a better chance of survival” Fischer has been added in a press release.
The researchers also combined PAC-Mann with a diagnostic test that was already available for pancreatic cancer called approx. 19-9, where the combination could see early signs of pancreatic cancer 85% of the time, an improvement on the CA 19-9 test alone. The test also showed an indication to be able to follow the treatment response in patients with pancreatic cancer, causing a weaker signal when the treatments for patients worked.
“This test is not only about detection – it can also help us measure how good treatments work and guide therapeutic options,” Fischer said. “If we can follow the reaction of a patient to therapy in real time, we can make better treatment decisions and improve the results.”
The researchers claim that the test is cheap, takes only 45 minutes to offer a result and only requires a small pinprick blood. The researchers are planning to conduct a further study at Oregon Health & Science University about patients with a high risk of developing pancreatic cancer to further develop and validate the test.