Pancreatic cancer may be detected by a simple urine test, according to a recent study.
UK researchers found that a combination of three proteins found at high levels in urine can accurately detect early-stage pancreatic cancer, CBS News reported. This discovery can lead to a non-invasive, inexpensive test to screen people at high risk of developing the disease.
If this test proves to be as good as we hope, we could make an important difference and enable early diagnosis of pancreatic cancer completely noninvasively, using urine samples," Dr. Tatjana Crnogorac-Jurcevic, lead researcher of the study, told CBS News.
For the study, researchers looked at 488 urine samples: 192 from patients known to have pancreatic cancer, 92 from patients with chronic pancreatitis and 87 from healthy volunteers. A further 117 samples from patients with other benign and malignant liver and gall bladder conditions were used for further validation.
Around 1,500 proteins were found in the urine samples, but "based on biological information and performance in statistical analysis" they focused on three: LYVE1, REG1A and TFF1, The Guardian reported.
Patients with pancreatic cancer were found to have increased levels of each of the three proteins when compared to urine samples from healthy patients, while patients suffering from chronic pancreatitis had significantly lower levels than cancer patients. When combined, the three proteins formed a robust panel that can detect patients with stages I-II pancreatic cancer with over 90 percent accuracy.
"We've always been keen to develop a diagnostic test in urine as it has several advantages over using blood. It's an inert and far less complex fluid than blood and can be repeatedly and non-invasively tested," Crnogorac-Jurcevic said in a statement.
The team is hoping to conduct further tests on urine samples from people in high risk groups, to further validate the study findings
The findings are detailed in the journal Clinical Cancer Research.
