A blood-based metabolomic signature predictive of risk for pancreatic cancer

Emerging evidence implicates microbiome involvement in the development of pancreatic cancer (PaCa). Here, we investigate whether increases in circulating microbial-related metabolites associate with PaCa risk by applying metabolomics profiling to 172 sera collected within 5 years prior to PaCa diagnosis and 863 matched non-subject sera from participants in the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian (PLCO) cohort. We develop a three-marker microbial-related metabolite panel to assess 5-year risk of PaCa. The addition of five non-microbial metabolites further improves 5-year risk prediction of PaCa. The combined metabolite panel complements CA19-9, and individuals with a combined metabolite panel + CA19-9 score in the top 2.5th percentile have absolute 5-year risk estimates of >13%. The risk prediction model based on circulating microbial and non-microbial metabolites provides a potential tool to identify individuals at high risk of PaCa that would benefit from surveillance and/or from potential cancer interception strategies.