A Social Program for the Early Detection of Pancreatic Cancer: The Kishiwada Katsuragi Project

Objectives: The early-stage pancreatic cancer (e-PC; stage I/II) detection rate is quite low at approximately 25%. The aim of this study was to evaluate the feasibility of a social program (the Kishiwada Katsuragi project) wherein our hospital, which specializes in PC, and primary care medical offices (PMOs) used clinical findings to detect e-PC.Methods: Patients with a score of ≥2 points on clinical findings were enrolled: symptoms of abdominal pain/back pain (1 point), new-onset diabetes (1 point), high amylase (AMY) and/or pancreaitc AMY (P-AMY) (1 point), high carbohydrate antigen 19-9 (1 point), and ultrasonography (US) findings including direct (e.g., a solid pancre atic tumor) and/or indirect findings (e.g., dilatation of a pancreatic diameter of ≥2.5 mm and/or cystic lesions) (2 points) were evaluated using the protocol for social programs.Results: Between November 2014 and December 2016, 244 patients were enrolled by 41 PMOs as cooperative facilities, and 15 e-PC cases (53.6%) of the 28 PC patients were detected. The mean clinical finding score of the e-PC group (3.13 ± 1.9) was significantly higher than that of the overall non-PC group (2.1 ± 0.4) (p
Source: Oncology - Category: Cancer & Oncology Source Type: research