Groundbreaking New Blood Test Offers Early Pancreatic Cancer Diagnosis Study Says
LONG BEACH, Calif., Feb. 29, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- As reported in today's issue of the journal Metabolites, researchers at Metabolomycs, a California-based biotechnology company, for the first time applied targeted mass spectrometry to show that pancreatic cancer arises through changes in cellular metabolism and that these changes can be measured with a simple blood test.
- "Pancreatic cancer is the third leading cause of death from cancer largely because it is rarely caught early," said Dr. Robert Nagourney, senior author.
- Using Mass Spectrometry to measure minute concentrations of bio-chemicals in the plasma, the technique identified pancreatic cancer in the blood with near perfect accuracy.
- The results provide a "cancer signature" that distinguishes patients with pancreatic cancer from normal individuals and can distinguish pancreatic cancer from other forms of cancer, like breast and ovarian.
- Following Genomics, the study of DNA and Proteomics, the study of cell proteins, metabolomics, is the new "omic" to watch.