A new biomarker for pancreatic cancer has been identified, raising hopes of earlier diagnosis, British researchers have announced.
Due to a lack of symptoms in early illness, up to 90% of patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma present with advanced disease.
There is a serum biomarker test available but its accuracy is not high, the developers say.
"Thus, there are currently no reliable and clinically applicable biomarkers for early detection of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, " state Professor Hemant Kocher of Queen Mary University of London, UK, and colleagues in yesterday’s npj Precision Oncology.
They investigated whether serum levels of a protein called pentraxin 3 could be a surrogate marker for the cancer, because it reflects the amount of dense connective tissue laid down by pancreatic cells during cancer.
The team analysed blood samples from 267 individuals, including 140 from patients.
This showed that a serum pentraxin 3 level of more than 4.34 ng/mL is a much better indicator of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma than the current test.
Pentraxin 3 is a stromally-derived biomarker "which warrants further testing in prospective, larger, multi-centre cohorts and within clinical trials targeting stroma", the authors state.
Professor Kocher said: “The findings from our study suggest that pentraxin 3 could be used as a biomarker to improve pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma diagnosis and warrants further testing to determine whether it could aid early detection of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma in the clinic.
“Thanks to the generous donation of samples from patients in London, Verona and Milan, our study represents a clinically relevant cohort with translational significance. This research has been made possible by an international collaboration of cancer biologists, surgeons, oncologists, clinical triallists, statisticians and bio-banking specialists.”
Goulart, M. R. et al. Pentraxin 3 is a stromally-derived biomarker for detection of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma. npj Precision Oncology 29 June 2021 doi: 10.1038/s41698-021-00192-1
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