Clinical Cancer Research<\/a>, come as a new revolutionary drug targeting KRAS is showing substantial survival benefits.<\/p>\nStudy senior author Akhil Chawla said: “As we enter the era of KRAS-targeted therapies, having a screening tool that tracks the same mutation becomes increasingly important.<\/p>\n
“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.”<\/p>\n
Pancreatic cancer is one of the deadliest malignancies, even when diagnosed before it has visibly spread.<\/p>\n
Many patients undergo months of chemotherapy and surgery, yet their cancer often returns.<\/p>\n
Chawla said: “In these patients, circulating tumor DNA levels are often extremely low and difficult to detect.<\/p>\n
“Many patients and families ask me, ‘How do we know if the treatment is working?’<\/p>\n
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Study authors Drs. Akhil Chawla (right) and Qiang Zhang in their lab at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. (Ben Schamisso \/ Northwestern University via SWNS)<\/p>\n
By Talker<\/p>\n
“This research is part of trying to answer that question more precisely.”<\/p>\n
The study followed 106 Northwestern Medicine patients with localized pancreatic cancer from diagnosis through chemotherapy and surgery.<\/p>\n
The research team collected blood samples from the study participants before treatment, after chemotherapy and after surgery between October 2020 and October 2024.<\/p>\n
At diagnosis, the study found that the more sensitive blood test, digital droplet PCR or ddPCR, detected signs of cancer in nearly four times as many patients as conventional next-generation sequencing tests (NGS), which are more commonly used.<\/p>\n
Even after chemotherapy and surgery, ddPCR continued detecting cancer in most patients, while NGS and standard testing didn’t.<\/p>\n
After chemotherapy, ddPCR detected tumor KRAS DNA in 60% of patients, compared with just 5% for NGS.<\/p>\n
After surgery, ddPCR detected tumor KRAS DNA in 56% of patients, compared with 9% for NGS.<\/p>\n
Chawla said: “This suggests physicians may currently be missing residual disease in most patients using currently available testing approaches.”<\/p>\n
The findings showed that better detection meant better prediction of survival outcomes.<\/p>\n
The clearest example was the discovery of a previously hidden group of high-risk patients whose cancer was missed by standard NGS but detected by ddPCR.<\/p>\n
That group survived an average of 27 months after diagnosis, compared with 41 months among patients who tested negative on both tests.<\/p>\n
Chawla added: “NGS and ddPCR are blood tests – often called liquid biopsies – that search for traces of DNA shed by cancer cells into the bloodstream.<\/p>\n
“Detecting this tumor DNA provides an early sign that cancer is present or may return.<\/p>\n
“Because these tests rely on a simple blood draw, they can be repeated over time without requiring invasive procedures.”<\/p>\n
Every Exponent article goes through checks for accuracy before publication. If you have a concern or questions about this article, please email editor@purdueexponent.org.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Study senior author Dr. Akhil Chawla, a complex surgical oncologist, working in his lab at Northwestern University Feinberg…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":903841,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5124],"tags":[960,5386,1818,84783],"class_list":["post-903840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-chicago","tag-chicago","tag-il","tag-illinois","tag-stephen-beech"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116840970913180873","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/903840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=903840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/903840\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/903841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=903840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=903840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=903840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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