Simple Intestinal Probe May Detect Pancreatic Cancer

In a small study, a tiny light attached to a probe measured changes in cells and blood vessels in the small intestine close to that organ’s junction with the pancreas, allowing physicians at Mayo Clinic’s campus in Florida to detect pancreatic cancer 100% of the time. This minimally invasive technique, called Polarization Gating Spectroscopy, will now be tested in a much larger international clinical trial.

“No one ever thought you could detect pancreatic cancer in an area that is somewhat remote from the pancreas, but this study suggests it may be possible,” says Wallace, the chairman of the Division of Gastroenterology at Mayo Clinic in Florida. “Although results are still preliminary, the concept of detection [of] field effects of nearby cancers holds great promise for possible early detection of pancreatic cancer.”

The light, developed at Northwestern University, is attached to an endoscope and measures the size of blood vessels and the amount of oxygenated blood in tissue near the duct where the pancreas joins the small intestine. Normal tissue in the vicinity of the cancer reveals evidence of enlarged blood vessels and changes in the amount of oxygen within the blood, because a growing tumor requires a heightened supply of blood.

According to Wallace, “With this technology, other studies have shown that cancerous polyps can be detected more than 11 inches from the polyp itself. Early studies are evaluating if esophageal cancers can also be detected remotely.”

The probe acts “a bit like a metal detector that beeps faster and louder as you get close to cancer,” Wallace says. Measurements are taking place within 6 to 10 inches of the pancreas in the small intestine immediately next to the pancreas.

For the small study, Wallace and his team tested the probe on 10 patients who were later determined to have pancreatic cancer, and on 9 participants who did not have pancreatic cancer.

They discovered that testing the blood vessel diameter and the blood oxygenation detected all 10 pancreatic cancers. However, the probe was only 63% accurate in determining which of the healthy volunteers did not have pancreatic cancer.

“There is room for improvement in this instrument, and our group is working on that,” Wallace says. “If the studies confirm the early results, it would make the pancreas accessible to a much simpler upper endoscope and that would be a real advance in the treatment of pancreatic cancer.”

Mihir Patel, MD, a gastroenterologist who also worked on the study, says that the overall survival associated with pancreatic cancer has not improved over the past several decades.

“That’s because we haven’t been able to detect the cancer early enough,” Patel says. “Developing a technique to screen the patients and detect pancreatic cancer at an early stage would be a potential breakthrough. In our preliminary data, this technology has shown to hold similar potential.”

Source: Mayo Clinic.