Tumors in the pancreas tend to go undetected until they have already spread to other parts of the body.
His teams experimental liquid biopsy works by detecting genetic markers of pancreatic cancer in the blood.
That could alert clinicians to the presence of cancer before it can be seen with traditional imaging tools.
Photo Illustration by Tara Anand for Verywell Health; Getty Images
The U.S. cohort included 139 participants with pancreatic cancer and 193 healthy donors.
The test was almost totally accurate in identifying which study participants had early-stage pancreatic cancers.
The early warning signs, such as abdominal pain and sudden weight loss, can indicate many different conditions.
Early detection and prevention are really important for this disease, even more so than others.
Catching pancreatic cancer just a few months earlier can significantly increase the possibility of treating the disease.
The rate is 44% when clinicians catch the cancer before it spreads outside of the pancreas.
This cancer is already lethal.
A liquid biopsy works by detecting those cellular fragments.
If the biopsy finds signs of that genetic information, its likely that a patient has some cancerous growth.
Free-floating microRNAs in the blood are very stable and can be easily detected.
Thats where the exosomes come in, he said.
The test also detects exosomes that contain at least one of eight microRNA unique to pancreatic cancer cells.
The only blood test currently available for pancreatic cancer tests for the protein CA 19-9.
Its typically used to monitor how well someone with pancreatic cancer responds to treatments.
For that reason, CA 19-9 tests are usually paired with imaging and other tools for pancreatic cancer detection.
When they combined it with a CA 19-9 test, the accuracy increased to 97%.
Screening may involve high-resolution imaging techniques such as MRI scans or endoscopicultrasoundsto check for any precancerous or cancerous growth.
However, this kind of screening can be expensive to perform frequently, Aslanian said.
They might then scan the pancreas to detect the tumor and biopsy the tissue.
Those tests are less developed than the blood-based liquid biopsies are, Wolpin said.
Developing better imaging tools could also help clinicians notice small tumors hidden deep in the abdomen, Wolpin said.
There are quite a number of groups now who are really focused on this problem.
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