An international team of researchers has identified three proteins that allow the early diagnosis of ductal pancreas adenocarcinoma, starting with extracellular vesicles contained in a small volume of plasma. The index associated with the degree of expression of these three proteins distinguishes these patients from the controls without cancer, …
An international team of researchers It has identified three proteins that enable the early diagnosis of pancreas ductal adenocarcinoma, starting from extracellular vesicles contained in a small volume of plasma. The index associated with the degree of expression of these three proteins distinguishes these patients from the controls without cancer, with a specificity and sensitivity of 81 and 91%, respectively. Yazhen Zhu, JonSson Comprehensive Cancer scientist at the University of California and co -director of the studyaffirms that the reliability of the index has been confirmed in an additional validation cohort, being superior to that offered by the CA19-9 antigen, frequently used in the diagnosis of this type of cancer.
This superiority manifested in all stages of the disease, although the combination of both biomarkers slightly increased reliability. The researcher continues to indicate that, in the subpopulation formed by patients with disease in stages I and II, the specificity and sensitivity values were similar to those obtained in all the stages and, again, superior to those offered by the CA19-9 antigen. Notably, the index also efficiently distinguished patients from individuals with benign pancreatic tumors or with high risk profile.
Zhu points out that This new method could facilitate the screening of the general population, an intervention that has so far been limited by the low sensitivity of conventional liquid biopsy, based on nucleic acids or multiple protein sets. This new approach could offer particular benefit in early stage patients who do not have a circulating CA19-9, the scientist concludes.
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