A new blood test could diagnose pancreatic cancer much earlier, improving survival rates for people with the disease.
Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is the most common type of pancreatic cancer, making up more than 80% of all cases of the disease. Despite being rarer than many types of cancer including lung, breast and colorectal, pancreatic cancer accounts the the fourth most deaths of any cancer globally and it’s prognosis is dismal, with only 13% of people surviving for 5 years or more after diagnosis. Almost 40,000 deaths from pancreatic cancer occur annually in the United States alone.
A large part of the reason for this poor prognosis is that pancreatic cancer is often diagnosed at a late stage when it has spread outside of the pancreas, sometimes to distant sites in the body. As with most types of cancer, once the tumor has spread, it becomes much harder to successfully treat.
“Liquid biopsy” tests which use a sample of easily-obtainable bodily fluids such as blood or urine have become a popular area of innovation in biotech in recent years, particularly in early detection of cancer or monitoring of treatment response. Some liquid biopsies look for small fragments of genetic material, which are released into the bloodstream by tumors, but others look for levels of proteins, enzymes or other metabolites.
Results from the new blood-based test called “PAC-MANN” were published in the journal Science Translational Medicine. The test detects the activity of enzymes called proteases in the blood of people with pancreatic cancer. The researchers validated the test on over 350 blood samples from people with and without pancreatic cancer, finding the test demonstrated the ability to differentiate blood from people with pancreatic cancer from healthy people and also people with non-cancerous pancreatic disease, 98% of the time.
“The problem with pancreatic cancer is that we often catch it too late,” said Jared Fischer, PhD, lead author of the work and Assistant Professor of Molecular and Medical Genetics at the 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 added in a press release.
The researchers also combined PAC-MANN with a diagnostic test already available for pancreatic cancer called CA 19-9, where the combination was able to spot early signs of pancreatic cancer 85% of the time, an improvement on the CA 19-9 test alone. The test also showed some indication of being able to monitor treatment response in patients with pancreatic cancer, giving off a weaker signal when treatments were working for patients.
“This test isn’t just about detection — it could also help us measure how well treatments are working and guide therapeutic options,” said Fischer. “If we can track a patient’s response to therapy in real-time, we can make better treatment decisions and improve outcomes.”
The researchers claim that the test is cheap, takes just 45 minutes to provide a result and only requires a tiny pinprick of blood. The researchers plan to run a further trial at Oregon Health & Science University on patients with a high risk of developing pancreatic cancer to further develop and validate the test.
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