Abstract
Although the diagnostic method for pancreatic cancer has made a rapid progress in recent years to the point of allowing detection of a minute cancer with a considerable fre-quency, the current status of the approach to this problem is still far from perfect, with the 5-year survival rate being disappointingly low. The reason for this is primarily the unavailability of an effective, easy-to-use means of early detection for pancreatic cancer. We applied high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) to the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer and obtained findings specific for this particular malignancy. This procedure employs 100 μl untreated serum as sample, which is allowed to pass through Super 8 con-sisting of eight GA-150 columns (Asahi Kasei) for an analysis time of 100 minutes. The chromatogram thus obtained is subject to statistical processing with respect to 3 indications developed by us. This diagnostic test was positive in 11 (79%) of 14 cases of pancreatic cancer and in 39 (83%) of 47 cases of other malignant tumors. We have a plan of making further research efforts, including detailed analysis of the test results in relation to disease stage and refinement of the column and solvent, to establish the availaility of the procedure as a simple biochemical diagnostic test for pancreatic cancer.
