Pancreatic cancer is projected to become the second leading cause of cancer related death by 2030. As new therapies are developed to treat malignant lesions of the pancreas, a big effort is also dedicated to the early detection of pancreatic lesions with the potential to progress to an invasive cancer. The only radiologically identifiable precursors that we know of are Intraductal Papillary Mucinous Neoplasms (IPMN) and Mucinous Cystic Neoplasms (MCN). These cystic tumors are nowadays diagnosed with increasing incidence thanks to the widespread use of high-resolution tomographic imaging (e.g. CT scan). However, the majority of these lesions will never progress to an invasive cancer and will never require surgical resection. Identifying which lesions require to be closely surveilled and resected is the main aim of this project.
Over the years we built one of the biggest cyst fluid repositories in the country, opening collaboration with national and international centers, including MGH and Harvard University, Indiana university, the University of Heidelberg in Germany and the Pancreas Institute of the University of Verona in Italy. On the ground of such a large human samples repository, our main goals are:
1) To build an easy and effective test that is able to differentiate cystic lesion that have a high risk of progression
2) To identify combination therapies that are able to slow or stop the progression of cystic tumors
Our preliminary results show that we can achieve a high sensitivity and specificity in identifying the correct diagnosis and stratify the risk of degeneration with a practical and accurate solution using a microfluidic platform. These results are relevant because they can reduce the number of unnecessary pancreatic resection that are currently performed worldwide for benign lesions, avoiding the high number of associated postoperative complications and deaths.