Background: To develop a serum-specific protein fingerprint which is capable of differentiating samples from patients with pancreatic cancer and those with other pancreatic conditions.
Methods: We used SELDI-TOF-MS coupled with CM10 chips and bioinformatics tools to analyze a total of 118 serum samples in this study; 78 serum samples were analyzed to establish the diagnostic models and the other 40 samples were analyzed on the second day as an independent test set.
Results: The analysis of this independent test set yielded a specificity of 91.6% and a sensitivity of 91.6% for pattern 1, which distinguished pancreatic adenocarcinoma (PC) from healthy individuals and a specificity of 80.0% and a sensitivity of 90.9% for pattern 2, which distinguished PC from chronic pancreatitis.
Conclusion: This study indicated that the SELDI-TOF-MS technique can facilitate the discovery of better serum tumor biomarkers and a combination of specific models is more accurate than a single model in diagnosis of PC.
Copyright 2008 S. Karger AG, Basel and IAP.