This Is Good News About A Cancer None Of Us Ever Want!

 

I, for one, would leap at an annual blood test to avoid this horror!

Scientists to develop first ever blood test for pancreatic cancer

By Joanna Panagopoulos

10:15PM November 16, 2023

Australian researchers are close to developing the first blood test for the “silent killer” pancreatic cancer.

Scientists from the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in Melbourne believe a simple blood test could improve survival rates and quality of life for patients diagnosed with the hard-to-detect and lethal disease, which will kill 3600 Australians this year.

Over the past eight years, the WEHI team has identified 13 proteins to distinguish between the early and late stages of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, the most common type of pancreatic cancer.

WEHI hopes $100,000 in funding from Australia’s top pancreatic cancer organisation, PanKind, will help them validate the proteins over the next year, and show it can be reliably used to screen for early pancreatic cancer. Researchers will then develop the landmark blood test, which would be similar to tests used by GP’s to check for diabetes.

Pancreatic cancer is often discovered late since there are no specific symptoms for the disease. Most people experience back pain, stomach pain, or a change in bowel habits, which don’t always take them to the doctor. By the time they present to the emergency department, the cancer has started affecting nearby organs.

“Close to half of patients will present to the emergency department with late-stage disease,” co-lead investigator Tracy Putoczki said.

For this reason, most pan­creatic cancer patients die within three to six months; 12 per cent of patients will make it to five years.

“At the moment, only about 20 per cent of people diagnosed with pancreatic cancer can go to surgery, and surgery is what you want because you can remove the cancer.”

“That means 80 per cent can’t have surgery and have chemotherapy with palliative intent.

“We want that 20 per cent to become 100 per cent having surgery because that means it’s been caught early. With a simple blood test to identify the cancer, things can move much more quickly,” she said.

Associate Professor Putoczki said the key thing was “hope”.

Project lead Belinda Lee said the blood test could potentially improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in Australia and around the world.

“The ultimate goal is that this tool leads to earlier diagnosis of this silent cancer, thereby increasing the number of patients who go into remission and so helping us to triple survival rates by 2030,” Dr Lee said. A consultant medical oncologist, she said there were no early detection biomarkers for pancreatic cancer and that “needed to urgently change”.

“While the five-year survival rate of most other cancers has improved, the incidence and death rate from pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma is rising – and it’s projected to become the second leading cause of cancer-related death by 2030.

More here:

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/science/scientists-to-develop-first-ever-blood-test-for-pancreatic-cancer/news-story/edfd12fe6698e15c4adc222ea0737dc2

Well done to all involved.

David.