Ru Chen

Ph.D.

Baylor College of Medicine

Associate Professor

PLCO (Learn more about this study)

2023-0088

Jan 11, 2024

Validation of proteomic assay for early detection of pancreatic cancer using PLCO pre-diagnostic specimens

Pancreatic cancer is a lethal disease that is difficult to detect at an early stage when effective treatment is possible. Most patients succumb within 6 months of diagnosis with only 12% of patients surviving more than five years. A major factor contributing to this grim outlook is the inability to detect this cancer early enough when curative resection is still possible. Therefore, early detection could represent an effective strategy to improve the survival rate of pancreatic cancer. For more than a decade, our collaborative group has applied proteomics and other techniques to investigate the proteome alterations associated with pancreatic cancer and its precursors, including pancreatic intraepithelial neoplasia (PanIN) and pancreatic cystic neoplasms (PCNs). These rigorous preclinical exploratory studies have provided us a rich source of candidates for biomarker development in pancreatic cancer. Using a spectral library-based proteomic platform technology, we have developed a blood-based proteomic biomarker panel that has been tested in two independent case-control cohorts for detecting early stage pancreatic cancer. This proteomic assay significantly outperformed CA19-9 for PDAC blood detection. With this application, we seek to test the efficacy of the proteomic assay in detecting PDAC at asymptomatic or pre-cancer stages using pre-diagnostic specimens from the prospectively collected PLCO cohorts. We will test the blood samples (plasma and serum) from pancreatic cancer cases at <1 year, <2 year, <3 year prior to their diagnosis to determine the predictive performance of the biomarker. For the cases that have longitudinal specimens, we will test the biomarker trajectories to evaluate the plausible time frame that pancreatic cancer can be detected.