American scientists have found a biomarker which allows to detect pancreatic cancer in its early stages.
The study was published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.
It is noted that the detection of essential biomarkers have been using a model developed by one of the authors in 2013. First, scientists have created a cell line based on cells of a patient with pancreatic adenocarcinoma flowing. Then reprogrammed cancer cells at a late stage of development in the stem, allowing then to start the process of cancer development and find out which biomarkers correspond to the early stage of the disease.
Having studied 746 samples, the researchers came to the conclusion that the best candidate biomarkers for early diagnosis – protein Thrombospondin-2 (THBS2). Scientists hope that, together with the monitoring of blood protein CA19-9, a known biomarker of late-stage pancreatic cancer, it will be possible to effectively diagnose pancreatic cancer at any stage. Also THBS2 will allow to distinguish pancreatic cancer from other cancers, they say.
