A panel of four blood biomarkers, comprised of the previously identified pancreatic cancer biomarker CA 19-9 plus three new protein biomarkers, can successfully identify individuals with pancreatic cancer from those who have other pancreatic conditions, according to a study presented at the American Association for Cancer Research’s special conference on pancreatic cancer (May 18-21; New Orleans). Blood-based biomarkers could markedly improve the ability to identify early-stage pancreatic cancer. Most of the time, pancreatic cancer is identified too late for good outcomes, with only 10 percent of pancreatic patients presenting with localized disease. The previously identified CA 19-9 marker for pancreatic cancer has been of limited utility and is not detectable in 5 percent to 10 percent of subjects with fucosyltransferase deficiency. So researchers have undertaken further validation of a multimarker panel intended to complement CA 19-9. A training set of plasma samples from 138 pancreatic cancer patients and 81 controls (52 healthy subjects and 29 subjects with chronic pancreatitis) yielded a combination rule which was then tested in plasma samples from an independent cohort of 42 early-stage pancreatic cancer patients, 50 healthy controls, 29 subjects with chronic pancreatitis, and 14 subjects with benign pancreatic cysts. In these analyses, CA 19-9 […]