Patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) were six times more likely to have had gallstone disease in the year before diagnosis than patients without cancer, suggesting that gallstones could be a warning sign of this aggressive cancer. and deadly, according to research to be presented at Digestive Disease Week® (DDW) 2022 . AND
PDAC is the most common pancreatic cancer, accounting for more than 90% of cases and is often fatal because it tends to be diagnosed in late stages.
“Pancreatic cancer can be difficult to diagnose and therefore the chances of survival are slim. Our findings suggest that gallstone disease may be a way to better diagnose this type of cancer, which means we could save more lives,” said Marianna Papageorge, MD, principal investigator of the study and researcher at Boston Medical Center.
Using records in the SEER-Medicare database from 2008 to 2015, researchers identified 18,700 patients with PDAC and compared them to an average of 99,287 patients per year from the same database. In the year before diagnosis, 4.7 percent of PDAC patients had a diagnosis of gallstone disease and 1.6 percent had their gallbladder removed. Among patients without cancer, only 0.8 percent had gallstones and only 0.3 percent had their gallbladder removed.
“Gallstone disease does not cause pancreatic cancer, but understanding its association with PDAC may help combat the high mortality rate of pancreatic cancer by providing the opportunity for earlier diagnosis and treatment,” Dr. Papageorge said.
Since many people have gallstones but do not develop pancreatic cancer, future research could look more closely at laboratory findings and imaging to see if there are specific factors related to gallbladder disease that could better distinguish which patients might have or develop pancreatic cancer, Papageorge said.
“It is a terrible disease and survival is very low,” Dr. Papageorge said. “People present at such advanced stages, so anything we can do to try to diagnose people earlier and make sure they receive curative treatment is crucial. “This could be a key to better understanding the next steps in screening, management and early diagnosis.”
