BIOMARKERY PANKREAS

In more than 85% of cases, pancreatic cancer (PC) is connected with paraneoplastic hyperglycaemia, which is diabetes mellitus associated with PC (DMPC) that appears 2 years before PC diagnosis and is considered to be an early symptom of PC. However, only 1% of patients with recent-onset diabetes (RODM) aged over 50 have PC. The current diagnostic procedures fail to distinguish DMPC from the very frequent diabetes mellitus type 2 (DM2), which represents the majority of RODM cases. In an attempt to specify the differences between DMPC and DM2, a new approach based on the combination of chiroptical and vibrational spectroscopy, electronic circular dichroism (ECD), Raman optical activity (ROA), infrared (IR) and Raman spectroscopy will be tested.

The main objective of the project is to determine the efficacy (sensitivity and specificity) of spectroscopic methods for PC/DMPC and DM2. Between 2016 and 2019, a total of 120 PC/DMPCs, 90 RODMs, 45 DM2 patients and 45 healthy controls will be enrolled. Blood will be collected from all individuals and processed according to standard procedures; biomolecules from blood plasma will be subsequently analysed by advanced spectroscopic methods.

The secondary aim of the project is to investigate the potential of the model for an early detection of PC with regard to the occurrence of RODM/DM, and to compare the efficacy of spectroscopy with standard diagnostic methods.

• Expert guarantor: Prof. Miroslav Zavoral, MD, PhD
• Funding: The project has been supported by the Ministry of Health of the Czech Republic within the programme “Programme for the Support Medical Applied Research in 2015–2022”. The project is registered with the identifier NV16-31028A.
• Brief overview of results: you can find more detailed information – in Czech language only – in the VaVaI information system