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Biomarker predicts which pancreatic cysts may become cancerous

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Pancreatic cancer kills more than 45,000 people in the U.S. each year, mostly due to the fact that it is detected too late for surgery to remove and halt the spread of the cancer.

Cysts in the pancreas sometimes develop into the invasive cancer, depending on the type of cyst, but such growths often are not cancerous, creating a quandary for physicians who spot them via CT and MRI scans. Surgery to remove pancreatic cysts is often complex, so there is a need for new tools to identify which such cysts are most likely to develop into cancer and which are not.