All research presented at ACG 2025 is strictly embargoed until 12:00 pm local Arizona Time, which aligns with Pacific Daylight Time (PDT)/3:00 pm ET on Sunday, October 26, 2025.
Oral 18 – High Performance of a Blood-Based Biomarker Test to Detect Early-Stage Pancreatic Cancer in a High-Risk Population, Across Two Independent Clinical Validation Studies
Monday, October 27, 2025 | 2:45 PM – 2:55 PM PDT | North Ballroom 120BC
Author Insight from Patricio M Polanco, MD
What’s new here and important for clinicians?
A protein biomarker-based blood test for detection of early-stage pancreatic cancer has been validated in two independent clinical studies and shows high accuracy in differentiating disease from high-risk controls.
The PancreaSure test has a sensitivity of 78% and specificity of 92% in detecting Stage I and Stage II pancreatic cancer across studies involving over 1400 patients, the majority of whom were at high-risk for pancreatic cancer.
The test showed similar high-performance in key subpopulations including patients at high-risk for genetic (eg. BRCA1-2, PALB2, ATM, STK11, and TP53 among others) or familial pancreatic cancer, those harboring pancreatic cystic lesions, and patients with recent onset of diabetes with high-risk conditions.
Early detection of pancreatic cancer with a well-validated, accurate test is key to impacting clinical outcomes, especially in patients at high-risk for disease.
Prospective studies are needed to further validate the findings.
What do patients need to know?
Early detection of pancreatic cancer, when surgery is still a treatment option, is key to combating the disease, but is challenging with no tools available other than imaging.
This blood-based protein biomarker test has shown strong performance in detecting early-stage pancreatic cancer in patients at high-risk for disease across two independent studies
High-risk population could include genetic (eg. BRCA1-2, PALB2, ATM, STK11, and TP53 among others) or familial pancreatic cancer, those harboring pancreatic cystic lesions, and patients recent onset of diabetes with high-risk conditions.
This test is now commercially available and in clinical use at select institutions.
Author Contact
Patricio M. Polanco, MD
University of Texas Southwestern
Dallas, TX
Patricio.Polanco [at] utsouthwestern.edu
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