Researchers have developed a new blood test that could greatly improve early detection of pancreatic cancer, a disease that is often diagnosed too late to treat effectively. Scientists combined four protein markers—CA19-9, THBS2, and two newly identified markers, ANPEP and PIGR—into a single test.
Using all four markers together significantly increased accuracy. The test correctly distinguished pancreatic cancer from non-cancer cases 92% of the time across all stages and detected early-stage cancers with 87.5% accuracy. It also showed strong specificity, meaning it could reliably tell cancer apart from benign conditions such as pancreatitis.
Early detection is critical because only about 10% of pancreatic cancer patients survive five years after diagnosis. Finding the disease sooner could make treatment far more effective. The next step is to test this blood panel in larger studies, especially among high-risk groups, to see if it can be used as a screening tool before symptoms appear.