A medical team has presented a new test that could lead to a more accurate and reliable diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. This method is based on detecting specific antibodies in blood samples in a selective manner.
Pancreatic cancer is considered one of the most deadly types of cancer, because it is usually diagnosed at very late stages, and current methods of detecting this cancer are not accurate enough to detect it early through examinations.
How can pancreatic cancer be detected?
Cancer cells produce special proteins, and unfortunately, they attract the attention of immune cells that circulate in the body looking for anything suspicious about these proteins. The immune cells do their part and produce antibodies to destroy the tumor they discovered in the early stages of the disease. This is what makes the antibodies generated a tool that can be exploited in the early detection of cancer. The idea is simply that if we find these antibodies, we may hold the thread that will lead us to the presence of cancer in the body.
The researchers chose to work on this mechanism to create their new diagnostic tool, which will lead to the early detection of pancreatic cancer. The researchers chose antibodies that are generated against a protein that is significantly increased in cancer, known as “tumor-associated myosin 1.”
By taking blood samples from patients to be diagnosed, antibodies, if present, can be picked up by encountering them with the protein they were created to fight. The researchers analyzed the structure of the myosin 1 protein and its associated sugars so they could create similar proteins that the antibodies could recognize. The researchers attached the proteins they created to nanoparticles.
The researchers tested their new approach on blood samples from people with pancreatic cancer and healthy people to see if the test could accurately detect cancer. The method was found to be better at detecting errors than current methods, according to a study published in the Journal of Applied Chemistry on August 9.
The discovery is attributed to an international team of researchers led by Roberto Fiamingo and Giovanni Malerba from the University of Verona (Italy), Alfredo Martinez from the Biomedical Research Center of La Roja (Logroño, Spain) and Francisco Corzana from the University of La Roja, according to EurekAlert.
Pancreatic cancer
Common symptoms of pancreatic cancer, according to the Cancer Research UK website, include abdominal or back pain, yellowing of the skin or eyes (jaundice), discoloured stools and weight loss.
Pancreatic cancer is more common in older people. About half of all new cases are diagnosed in people aged 75 or older. It is not common in people younger than 40.
Around 20 out of 100 cases of pancreatic cancer in the UK (around 20%) are caused by smoking. Cigarettes, cigars, pipes and chewing tobacco all increase your risk of pancreatic cancer. The best way for smokers to reduce their risk of cancer and improve their general health is to stop smoking completely. People who have stopped smoking 20 years ago have the same risk of pancreatic cancer as people who have never smoked.