The pancreas is a small organ that sits behind the stomach, but it has two very important jobs. It makes digestive juices that help break down food, and it produces hormones such as insulin that help control blood sugar levels.
When the pancreas becomes diseased, it can affect the whole body. One of the most serious diseases of the pancreas is pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, also called PDAC. This is the most common form of pancreatic cancer and one of the deadliest cancers in the world.
It is the third leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States. One reason it is so dangerous is that it often causes few or no symptoms in its early stages. Many people are not diagnosed until the cancer has already spread, making treatment much more difficult.
Today, only about 13 out of every 100 people diagnosed with pancreatic cancer are still alive five years later. Because of these poor survival rates, scientists are searching for better ways to detect the disease early and stop it from spreading.
A research team from the University of Illinois Chicago has now reported a promising new approach that combines a common medicine with an innovative blood-testing device. Their findings were published in the journal Lab on a Chip.
The researchers are studying lidocaine, a medicine that has been safely used for more than 65 years to numb pain during medical and dental procedures. While lidocaine is well known as a local anesthetic, laboratory studies suggest it may also affect cancer cells.
The team wanted to learn whether the medicine could reduce the ability of pancreatic cancer cells to spread to other parts of the body. During surgery to remove a pancreatic tumor, tiny numbers of cancer cells can sometimes escape into the bloodstream. These cells are known as circulating tumor cells, or CTCs.
They can travel through the blood and settle in other organs, where they may form new tumors. Patients with larger numbers of these circulating cancer cells often have a greater risk that their cancer will return after surgery. There is usually a recovery period before chemotherapy can begin, giving these cells time to move through the body.
Earlier research suggested that lidocaine may make these cancer cells less active and easier for the body’s immune system to remove before they can start new tumors. Lead researcher Dr. Gina Votta-Velis believes this approach could reduce the chance of cancer spreading after surgery. Before scientists can fully study these cells, they first need to find them.
This is extremely difficult because there may be only 30 to 40 cancer cells mixed among billions of normal blood cells. To solve this problem, Dr. Votta-Velis worked with biomedical engineer Dr. Ian Papautsky, who specializes in designing tiny devices that control the movement of fluids.
Together they created a small device made of glass and plastic that is about the size of a finger. Inside are very narrow channels that separate larger, softer cancer cells from normal blood cells. This process is called a liquid biopsy because it looks for cancer cells in a blood sample instead of removing tissue through surgery.
Unlike some older methods, the device can collect the cancer cells without damaging them, allowing scientists to study them more carefully. Earlier laboratory testing showed that the device identified cancer cells with about 93% accuracy.
In the latest study, the team compared it with another technology called EasySep, which uses magnets to separate cancer cells from blood. When they tested blood samples from people with pancreatic cancer, the new device detected about eight times more circulating tumor cells than the older method.
It also worked much faster, sometimes completing the test in only 20 minutes. The researchers believe this technology could become an important tool for doctors. A simple blood test that finds cancer cells earlier could help diagnose pancreatic cancer sooner, monitor how well treatment is working, and identify patients who have a higher risk of the cancer returning.
Dr. Pier Giulianotti, another member of the research team, said many different cancers spread through the bloodstream, so this technology may eventually have uses beyond pancreatic cancer. Although more studies and clinical trials are still needed before this approach becomes part of routine medical care, the findings offer new hope.
By combining an established medicine like lidocaine with an advanced liquid biopsy device, scientists are developing new ways to better understand cancer, detect it earlier, and reduce its spread. These advances may one day improve survival and provide more personalized treatment for people facing one of the world’s most challenging cancers.
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