Early diagnosis followed by complete surgical removal of the tumor is, today, the only potentially curative therapy for cancers such as pancreas. However, there are still no tests that are sensitive and specific enough to detect this type of tumors in early stages. Furthermore, pancreatic cancer is one of the most difficult cancers to detect in the initial stage because the associated symptoms, abdominal pain, back pain, nausea or heavy digestion, can be confused with those of other diseases.
Óscar Pozo's team, from the Hospital del Mar Research Institute, in collaboration with the Gastroesophageal Carcinogenesis Research Group of the same center, the Doctor Trueta Hospital, in Girona, and the University of Girona, has identified a metabolic signature for early diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, that is, a group of compounds that are abnormally elevated in the blood of patients from the early stages of the disease. The group has detected alterations in these compounds in a high number of patients, even at those times when the tumor can still be operated on.
One of the main limitations of the metabolic signature is that the patient's serum sample must be sent frozen to a reference laboratory. “We have observed that some of the signature compounds degrade during transport if it is not done under exhaustive temperature control, which limits the possible implementation of the analysis in the general population,” explains the researcher. Hence, the main objective of the project he is working on is to evaluate the stability of the compounds in dried blood spots. It is the same strategy that is already used in the heel test in newborns. This type of support makes transportation easier. The sample can, for example, be sent by mail at room temperature without special precautions.
Transparency statement: This research is funded by the "la Caixa" Foundation, an entity that supports the Big Vang scientific information channel.
