Development of a New Diagnostic Tool for Pancreatic Cancer: Simultaneous Measurement of Antibodies against Peptides Recognized by Cytotoxic T Lymphocytes

One of the longstanding challenges in the treatment of pancreatic cancer, the fifth most common cancer worldwide, is to establish a simple and reliable diagnostic marker for the disease. This study examined whether or not the simultaneous measurement of plasma levels of IgG antibodies (IgGs) reactive to peptides recognized by cytotoxic T lymphocytes was useful for screening of pancreatic cancer. Sixty-three kinds of peptides were tested for their reactivity to plasma IgGs of pancreatic cancer patients with Luminex system followed by discriminatory analysis of the results using the Statistical Discovery Software. Under these circumstances, 83% of subjects with pancreatic cancer and 12% of healthy donors were diagnosed as having pancreatic cancer, respectively. These results suggest that the simultaneous measurement of IgGs reactive to these peptides could potentially be useful as a new diagnostic tool to screen for pancreatic cancer.