A new blood test, called PAC-MANN, can detect pancreatic cancer even at an early stage, researchers reported in the journal Science Translational Medicine.
The test could one day give doctors a simple way to detect the disease early, before it's too late for treatment, says study co-author Jared Fisher, a molecular biologist at Oregon Health & Science University in the US.
"There is really a huge need for an early detection test for pancreatic cancer," he said.
Although relatively rare, pancreatic cancer is one of the deadliest cancers. Patients are often diagnosed late because the disease is difficult to detect.
"There are no obvious symptoms," says biomedical scientist José Montoya Mira, a member of the team. Unlike what is available for other diseases, doctors have nothing that can easily detect early cases of pancreatic cancer. They are limited mainly to biopsies and imaging tests.
The researchers took blood samples from 178 people who either did not have pancreatic cancer or had already been diagnosed. PAC-MANN correctly predicted whether the patients had cancer or not 90 percent of the time. Now the team is validating their research in a larger sample. They are also considering starting a clinical trial. The researchers believe that the test could one day be used for prevention, like an annual mammogram.
PAC-MANN does not require specialized imaging equipment or high-tech facilities to operate, meaning it has potential for use in populations and areas that lack the resources of large, wealthy hospitals, Montoya said.
Source: KYPE
