Pancreatic cancer breakthrough as doctors develop new blood test
Patients who have been treated for pancreatic cancer could benefit from a newly developed blood test that could identify tiny traces of the disease often missed by scans.
The highly sensitive test has been developed by a team based at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago who followed 106 pancreatic cancer patients from initial diagnosis through chemotherapy and surgery.
The new highly sensitive blood test - digital droplet PCR (ddPCR) - detected signs of cancer in nearly four times as many patients as conventional next-generation sequencing tests (NGS), which are more commonly used.
Both types of test search for traces of DNA shed by cancer cells into the bloodstream which can act as an early warning sign that cancer is present or may return.
The new test looks solely for the presence of KRAS, a genetic mutation that drives more than 90 per cent of pancreatic cancers.
The study, published in Clinical Cancer Research, found that even after chemotherapy and surgery, ddPCR continued detecting cancer in most patients, while NGS and standard testing didn’t.
It means that it could potentially help specialists identify patients whose disease is more likely to return - even when scans and other measuring tools appear reassuring.
When it comes to pancreatic cancer, early detection is key - both when it is first diagnosed and when seeing if it has metastasised elsewhere in the body.
Around 11,500 people are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in the UK each year
Around 11,500 people are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in the UK each year, between 10 and 20 per cent of whom are stage two, but the disease is notoriously difficult both to diagnose and treat.
Common symptoms of the incurable cancer - dubbed the 'silent killer' - include jaundice (when the skin and eyes take on a yellowish tinge), reduced appetite, weight loss, fatigue, a high temperature, feeling or being sick, diarrhoea and constipation.
As it is often caught very late, when treatment options are limited, only 10 per cent of patients live longer than five years after diagnosis - with more than half dying within three months of finding out that they have the illness.
At present, the disease is incurable, with life expectancy just five years from initial diagnosis. Just one in four patients live more than a year.
Harry Potter star Alan Rickman died in 2016 from pancreatic cancer aged 69, surviving just six months after his diagnosis.
Thanks to ddPCR the Northwestern Medicine team were able to identify a previously hidden group of high-risk patients whose cancer was missed by standard NGS.
That group survived a median of 27 months after diagnosis, compared with 41 months among patients who tested negative on both the ddPCR and NGS tests.
Speaking of people whose pancreatic cancer returns after surgery, study senior author Dr. Akhil Chawla said: 'In these patients, circulating tumor DNA levels are often extremely low and difficult to detect.
'Many patients and families ask me, "How do we know if the treatment is working?" This research is part of trying to answer that question more precisely.'
The blood test comes shortly after a new treatment, daraxonrasib, was found to be able to target the KRAS mutation - a huge advancement in the treatment of pancreatic cancer.
'As we enter the era of KRAS-targeted therapies, having a screening tool that tracks the same mutation becomes increasingly important,' said Chawla.
'That combination could fundamentally change how we identify high-risk patients, monitor microscopic disease, and potentially intervene earlier before recurrence becomes clinically visible, ultimately getting more patients to cure.'
Rosie O’Donnell Slammed for Posing in Front of Private Jet After Blasting Wealthy People as 'Embarrassing'
Rosie O’Donnell Slammed for Posing in Front of Private Jet After Blasting Wealthy People as ‘Embarrassing’
Millionaire left-wing comedian Rosie O’Donnell is being slammed on social media for posing with fellow comedian Kathy Griffin in front of a private jet after recently attacking wealthy people as “embarrassing” and asking, “How much [money] can you have?”
“The resistance has landed,” Griffin wrote in a Friday Instagram caption, sharing a photo of herself with O’Donnell in front of a jet. “Are you guys gonna watch the week that @Rosie guest hosts for @jimmykimmellive??? It will be a must watch week.”
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Amusingly, O’Donnell is apparently back in the U.S. — again — after fleeing the country for Ireland early last year and previously vowing not to return while President Donald Trump is in office.
Viewers quickly took to social media to share their reactions to O’Donnell standing before the private jet.
“Whatever democrats accuse you of doing, THEY ARE DOING,” one X user proclaimed.
“Rules for thee not for me!” another wrote.
“They are both embarrassing enough no matter what they’re standing in front of!” a third exclaimed.
“Envy is a terrible thing, usually displayed extensively by champagne socialists,” another X user remarked.
“These celebrities are hypocrites… and the general public doesn’t care what they have to say anyways,” another commented.
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“It’s okay when they do it,” the popular X account Catturd quipped.
“This is the perfect example of why the left cannot be taken seriously,” another X user reacted.
“I used to think these 2 women were funny until they contracted severe #TDS and a ragingly high level of hypocrisy,” another commented.
“Interesting… private Jets… what about the environment?” another X user asked in a nod to the left’s constant “climate change” alarmism.
“The problem for these limo-liberals is how they define ‘wealthy people,'” another pointed out. “It’s not about money, it’s about politics. ‘Wealthy people’ are really only those with money who don’t support the causes that Rosie and her comrades support.”
A few months ago, O’Donnell — who has an estimated net worth of $80 million — said, “It should be embarrassing to be a billionaire.”
“It should be embarrassing to have the ability to help society and choose not to, I mean, I don’t understand, how much can you have?” O’Donnell added at the time.
Watch Below:
Notably, leftists are commonly seen blasting “millionaires,” until they become one themselves, at which point they then segue to attacking “billionaires.”
As Breitbart News reported, millionaire left-wing TV host Jimmy Kimmel was slammed earlier this month for warning against “obscenely wealthy weirdo” Elon Musk getting richer.
“The class envy from multi millionaires of billionaires is really something to behold,” one X user quipped in reaction to Kimmel.
Alana Mastrangelo is a reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on Facebook and X at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.
