Nya test för diagnos av bukspottkörtelcancer i högrisk grupper av patienter.

Purpose and goal

Pancreatic cancer (PDAC) is one of the most lethal cancers with a 5-year survival of 7%. This is mainly due to diffuse symptoms resulting in late diagnosis when only about 15% of the tumours are resectable. The aim of this project was to develop blood-based diagnostic risk monitoring tests for the specific high-risk groups, patients with Intraductal Papillary Mucinous Neoplasms (IPMN) and newly onset diabetic patients (NOD) over 50 years. Initial positive results need to be validated in new studies on independent cohort, where all pre-clinical variables are controlled and documented

Expected results and effects

This project aims to pave the way for two new diagnostic tests, which for the first time would enable risk monitoring in (i) IPMN patients, the test would identify malignant IPMN lesions prior tyo development into PDAC, (ii) NOD over 50 years, since this group have a significantly increased risk of developing PDAC in the first 3 years after diagnosis. The project has provided important novel information for improved design of future studies, and lead to establishment of important contacts, which will secure that the coming implementation are done in a correct way.

Planned approach and implementation

The patient samples have been analyzed using Immunovia´s unique antibody microarray platform developed for discovery of biomarker signatures. Through partners at Pittsburg University Hospital, Oxford University and Lund University Diabetes Center, the project has had access to retrospectively collected serum samples from patients in the various risk groups, described above. Immunovia and CREATEHealth have a well established cooperation and the project constellation have worked very well, due to the contribution of the orthogonal expertise from the different organisations