The American Cancer Society estimates that 67,400 Americans will be diagnosed with pancreatic cancer this year and nearly 52,000 will die from the disease.

A new blood test could help doctors detect pancreatic cancer earlier, potentially improving survival rates for one of the deadliest cancers.

The problem with pancreatic cancer is that we often catch it too late,” he stated. The PAC-MANN test aims to enable clinicians to detect the disease at an earlier stage when

The OHSU researchers call their test “PAC-MANN,” which stands for “protease activity-based assay using a magnetic nanosensor.“ In alt-weekly terms, that means they figured out how to find evidence of pancreatic cancer by making proteins present in the blood of people with tumors light up when exposed to another protein.

OHSU's PAC-MANN test offers a breakthrough in pancreatic cancer detection, using a small blood sample to monitor protease activity with high accuracy.