3D structures formed by human pancreatic cancer cells. WEHI researchers are working on developing the first diagnostic test for pancreatic cancer, that could help triple the survival rate of pancreatic cancer by 2030. (Credit: WEHI)
SYDNEY, Australia — A cutting-edge blood test might finally be able to detect pancreatic cancer. The highly aggressive disease is often diagnosed late because its early stages do not exhibit specific symptoms. Most patients receive a diagnosis only when the cancer has already advanced and started affecting nearby organs.
Over 64,000 Americans have been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, while more than 50,000 will die, according to the American Cancer Society.
Pancreatic cancer is a silent killer, with poor survival rates mainly due to a lack of symptoms and effective screening tools to detect the disease in its early stages. Scientists from the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute (WEHI) in Australia aim to change that by creating a blood test capable of identifying patients with early-stage pancreatic cancer, a development that could significantly improve survival rates and the quality of life for affected individuals.
“There are no early detection biomarkers for pancreatic cancer and this needs to urgently change,” says lead researcher Dr. Belinda Lee, a consultant medical oncologist at WEHI, in a media release. “We have identified 13 proteins that could distinguish between the early and late stages of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) – the most common type of pancreatic cancer that’s fast-becoming the cancer of our generation.”
Early detection for pancreatic cancer would be monumental
While the five-year survival rates for most other cancers have improved, the incidence and death rate from PDAC are rising. It is projected to become the second leading cause of cancer-related death by 2030. Even after a diagnosis, there are currently no biomarkers available to guide clinical decisions for pancreatic cancer, leaving clinicians with limited options for tailoring treatment to individual patients.
“We hope to validate these proteins and show that they can be used to reliably screen for early pancreatic cancer,” explains Dr. Lee. “This would allow us to create the first diagnostic test to identify patients who have early stages of pancreatic cancer – something that unfortunately does not exist at the moment.”
To achieve their goal, researchers will leverage the PURPLE Pancreatic Cancer Translational Registry, a global database established by Dr. Lee at WEHI in 2016, with philanthropic support. This registry tracks the treatment journeys of patients at 48 cancer centers across Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore, and currently holds data on over 4,000 patients and 2,000 biospecimens.
Data from the registry highlights that a staggering 70 percent of patients are diagnosed with advanced disease, underscoring the urgent need for biomarkers to enable earlier detection.
“We will utilize state-of-the art technologies and computational methodologies to compare the protein signature in the blood of healthy individuals, to pancreatic cancer patients with early and late-stage disease,” says Dr. Lee. “We hope this test can be used by general practitioners to identify patients with disease, or by oncologists to identify the right treatment for patients. The ultimate goal is that this tool leads to earlier diagnosis of this silent cancer, thereby increasing the number of patients who go into remission and helping us triple survival rates by 2030.”
The study is published in the journal Communications Medicine.
