Health Spotlight | Detecting pancreatic cancer earlier

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Pancreatic cancer is the third leading cause of cancer death in the U.S.

That’s due in part to the limited testing available for early detection. Now, researchers at Johns Hopkins say they’ve made a breakthrough that could help change that.

CODA, the first ever 3D genome profiling technique, was able to make a 3D print of pre-cancerous cells found in a human pancreas.

“What we did here is look at tissue in 3D and then map the genetic alterations onto that 3D model,” said Dr. Laura Wood, associate professor of pathology and oncology at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center.

Never before have researchers been able to analyze precancers in this much detail.

These precancers don’t show up on traditional radiology exams. That’s why it’s difficult to detect pancreatic cancer early. Researchers say what they’re learning from this technology could eventually teach doctors how to spot the cancer sooner.

Here’s how it works: researchers start with microscopic slides, each with a pancreas sample.

“We scan all of those slides so you have thousands of images,” said Dr. Ashley Kiemen, assistant professor of pathology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

Engineers use a combination of AI and coding to “make these beautiful visualizations to map the tissue,” Keimen said.

Then pathologists perform DNA sequencing to examine the cells and learn how some mutate into full-blown cancer.

“What are the features of these precancers that are more likely to progress? So, then we know which ones to intervene on,” Wood said.

Another key finding: most of us have these precancers in our pancreas. So, researchers are exploring how it only becomes cancer in some of us.

The researchers are also now exploring whether this technique can help identify precancers in other organs as well.

This story was created from a script aired on WISH-TV. Health Spotlight is presented by Community Health Network.