When Cancer Comes Back

Study Found Proteins in Urine Can Indicate Pancreatic Cancer

According to a new study, published in the August 3 edition of Clinical Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, researchers have found three proteins in urine that indicate early stage pancreatic cancer. 

For the study, researchers analyzed 488 urine samples, including 192 from patients with pancreatic cancer, 92 from patients with chronic pancreatitis, and 87 from healthy people.  In addition, they looked at 117 urine samples from patients with diseases of the liver and gall bladder.  Of the 1,500 proteins found in the urine samples, the research team focused on three: LYVE1, REG1A and TFF1.  The researchers found that patients with pancreatic cancer had elevated levels of all three proteins compared with healthy patients and patients with pancreatitis.  Using all three proteins, they were able to detect early stage pancreatic cancer more than 90 percent of the time. 

“For a cancer with no early stage symptoms, it’s a huge challenge to diagnose pancreatic cancer sooner, but if we can, then we can make a big difference to survival rates,” said Nick Lemoine, Director of Barts Cancer Institute at Queen Mary University in London.  “With pancreatic cancer, patients are usually diagnosed when the cancer is already at a terminal stage, but if diagnosed at stage 2, the survival rate is 20 percent, and at stage 1, the survival rate for patients with very small tumors can increase up to 60 percent.” 

The clinical team at St. Louis CyberKnife treats pancreatic cancer with the CyberKnife® Robotic Radiosurgery System.  CyberKnife delivers high doses of radiation directly to pancreatic tumors.  The system offers patients who cannot undergo pancreatic cancer surgery due to their poor medical condition, or who refuse surgery, a painless, noninvasive alternative treatment for pancreatic cancer.  CyberKnife treatments are typically performed on an outpatient basis in one to five days, requiring no overnight hospital stay, and most patients experience minimal to no side effects with a quick recovery time.  

For more information about how St. Louis CyberKnife treats pancreatic cancer, please click here.