Biomarkers for the Early Detection of Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma

ABSTRACT

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma has one of the worst survival rates among adult cancers, with only 11% in the United States surviving five years after diagnosis. The majority of patients are diagnosed with late-stage disease, since early-stage pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma is typically either asymptomatic or presents with non-specific symptoms. Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma thus remains a highly fatal disease. Today, surgical resection (removal of the pancreas) is the only potentially curative modality of treatment available. Detecting pancreatic cancer lesions early enough to perform surgery is, however, beset with difficulties. Nevertheless, the timeline of progression from low-grade precursor lesions to invasive cancer does offer a window of opportunity to detect the disease earlier than is currently possible. By providing physicians with actionable information early enough for the cancer to be removed surgically, the overall 5-year pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma survival rate could increase from 11% to over 50%.  In this chapter, we describe the development and clinical implementation of a proteomic, multi-biomarker blood test for the early detection of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma.