Currently, X-rays and blood tests often miss pancreatic cancer. In this study, we are collecting and studying the fluid produced by the pancreas as a way to detect pancreatic cancer at an earlier stage.
Pancreatic cancer is very difficult to detect and treat, and patients with this cancer generally live fewer years than patients with other types of cancer. Part of the reason why pancreatic cancer is so hard to treat is because it is usually discovered when it is too advanced to be able to treat. The goal of this protocol is to find a way to detect pancreatic cancer earlier, when it is still treatable in order to improve the survival of patients. The pancreas is a gland which produces digestive juices that mix with food in the intestines. Normal patients as well as patients with pancreatic cancer produce these juices. Other researchers have collected this fluid from very small numbers of patients and their results suggest that pancreatic fluid can be used to detect pancreatic cancer. One of the major issues with these results is that pancreatic fluid from only a very few number of patients has been collected and analyzed. In order to find out whether the pancreatic fluid can be used as a standard test for pancreatic cancer, the fluid from a greater number of patients needs to be analyzed. Also, of all the different chemicals in the pancreatic fluid, in this study we will try to figure out what the most important chemicals are in diagnosing pancreatic cancer.
Study Type
OBSERVATIONAL
Enrollment
9
University of Alabama at Birmingham
Birmingham, Alabama, United States
Compare the proteomic signature of pancreatic adenocarcinoma , pancreatic cancer and control participants to the disease process
Characterization of the proteomic signature of patients with pancreatic adenocarcinoma, pancreatic cancer, and control participants. This will be accomplished by classifying a group or set of similar proteomic profiles(once we(once we have developed from the samples obtained a list of known proteomic profiles taht are found in all pancreatic adenocarcinoma subjects) that are specific to the disease process,of pancreatic adenocarcinoma.
Time frame: 120 months from First subject enrolled
Compare the proteomic profile between pancreatic cancer and pancreatitis
Using the discovered pancreatic adenocarcinoma proteomic profile we will differentiate a documentable difference from pancreatic cancer and pancreatitis
Time frame: 120 months from First subject enrolled
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