Pancreatic cancer is one of the most dangerous cancers. It’s often discovered too late, when it has already spread, making treatment very hard.
But a new simple blood test, developed by scientists at Oregon Health & Science University, might help doctors find this deadly disease much earlier. This could save many lives.
The new test is called PAC-MANN. It’s a shorter name for a more complex scientific tool that uses a tiny sample of blood to look for warning signs of cancer. It focuses on detecting changes in certain proteins called proteases.
These proteins are more active when a person has pancreatic cancer, especially the most common type called pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC).
Right now, doctors often use a test called CA 19-9 to monitor pancreatic cancer. But that test isn’t very good at spotting cancer early. By the time it gives a clear result, the cancer is often in a later stage. The PAC-MANN test was designed to solve this problem and help find cancer sooner.
Dr. Jared Fischer, one of the scientists behind the study, says the biggest issue with pancreatic cancer is how late it’s usually caught. If doctors could find it earlier, patients would have more treatment choices and a better chance to survive.
Dr. Fischer works at the Knight Cancer Institute’s early detection center at OHSU and teaches at their School of Medicine.
Another scientist on the team, Dr. Jose Montoya, helped create this test to be faster and cheaper than other options. He wanted something that could be used widely — not just in big hospitals, but also in smaller clinics or rural areas. That’s why PAC-MANN only needs a tiny drop of blood and less than an hour to get results.
In the study, the team tested blood from 350 people. Some had pancreatic cancer, others were at high risk, and the rest were healthy. They discovered that people with cancer had much more protease activity in their blood.
Using this information, the test could tell who had cancer and who didn’t — with 98% accuracy. Even more impressive, when the PAC-MANN test was used together with the older CA 19-9 test, it could spot early-stage cancer with 85% accuracy.
The test also showed promise in tracking how well treatment was working. After surgery to remove the cancer, the protease activity dropped, showing that the test could also help doctors see if treatments are helping. That could be very useful for adjusting treatment plans and giving patients better care.
Another major benefit of PAC-MANN is its low cost. According to Dr. Montoya, it uses only a tiny amount of blood — just 8 microliters — and each test costs less than one cent. This makes it a great choice for places with fewer resources, where more expensive or complex tests aren’t available.
The researchers now plan to continue testing PAC-MANN in future trials. They are especially focused on people who are at high risk for developing pancreatic cancer. If larger studies confirm their findings, PAC-MANN could become a very useful tool in the fight against one of the world’s most deadly cancers.
In summary, this study shows a lot of promise. PAC-MANN is fast, cheap, and highly accurate. It could help detect pancreatic cancer earlier and give patients a better chance of surviving.
It may also help doctors track how well treatments are working. While more research is still needed, this new test offers hope for changing how we fight this tough disease.
If you care about cancer, please read studies about Research shows a major cause of pancreatic cancer and findings of Dangerous chemical exposure linked to cancers in women.
For more about cancer, please read studies about Diabetes drug metformin is a promising ally in prostate cancer battle and findings of Colorectal cancer: The best screening test is the one you take.
The study is published in Science Translational Medicine.
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