Blood test panel better distinguished pancreatic cancer cases
The leading panel scored 96.3 versus 91.7 for a single blood marker on a measure of how well tests separated cancer cases from controls.
Our read
Biomarkers- Studied:
- Case-control study of 280 adults with or without pancreatic cancer, against serum CA19-9 alone
- What changed:
- AUC was higher with the CA19-9/FUT2/3 panel than serum CA19-9 alone: 96.3 against 91.7
- The catch:
- Only 20 of the 140 pancreatic cancer cases were stage I
- In the record:
- The 3rd paper on CA19-9 with results in people; 27 on record in all.
Editor of record: Boris Djordjevic · AgingResearch.News
Blood samples and inherited DNA from 140 people with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, a type of pancreatic cancer, and 140 healthy controls were compared in a blinded case-control study. Participants were aged 45 to 90, with a median age of 67.3; 51% were female. Cancer cases spanned stages I to IV, and blood was collected before treatment.
The researchers compared eight biomarker panels with cancer antigen 19-9, a blood marker, alone. The best-performing panel combined this marker with information about two genes, FUT2 and FUT3. Its area under the receiver operating characteristic curve—a measure of how well a test distinguishes cases from controls—was 96.3, versus 91.7 for the marker alone. Two panels significantly outperformed the single marker. The authors called for larger studies of the leading panel.
Why it matters
For pancreatic cancer detection in later life, this work addresses how to choose promising blood tests for larger early-detection studies.
Caveats
The comparison used known cancer cases and healthy controls, so it did not establish screening performance; only 20 cases were stage I. Participants were 94% non-Hispanic White, limiting how confidently the findings apply to other populations.
The paper
Mayo Clinic; Johns Hopkins University
Clinical Cancer Research, Mar 23, 2026, Open access
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