Promising way to detect pancreatic cancer explored

By Ishani Ganguli

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Researchers reported on Wednesday they could detect even early stage pancreatic cancer by shining light on a neighboring organ.

The findings may lead to the first method to detect this particularly deadly form of cancer early enough to treat it, said study researcher Vadim Backman of Northwestern University. Pancreatic cancer is the fourth-leading cause of U.S. cancer deaths.

Backman and colleagues analyzed light patterns they reflected off the lining of the duodenum, a part of the digestive tract next to the pancreas, they wrote in the journal Clinical Cancer Research.

They were able to distinguish nearly all of the 19 early and late-stage cancer patients from 32 healthy volunteers based on slight molecular changes revealed by the light patterns.

Those 51 tissue samples looked the same under a regular microscope, they said.

Pancreatic cancer is usually symptom-free in its early stages. The five-year survival rate for the disease is only 5 percent, and most die within a year of diagnosis, in part because it is so difficult to detect.

"(Screening techniques like) MRI are just not sensitive to pancreatic lesions (tumors) at a stage when pancreatic cancer is curable," Backman said in a telephone interview.

Removing and testing tissue from the pancreas itself comes with a 20 percent chance of serious complications, so it is done only in patients who already have symptoms. And by that point, said Backman, "It's too late to treat."