Synergistic Analysis of Protein Corona and Haemoglobin Levels Detects Pancreatic Cancer

SIMPLE SUMMARY: Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is often diagnosed at an advanced stage and is burdened by poor prognosis. Its early diagnosis is rare because the disease is frequently asymptomatic for a long time. Our research aims to identify a useful and simple diagnostic tool for early PDAC detection. The combination of user-friendly, nanotechnology-based tools and standard blood tests showed high accuracy in discriminating PDAC patients from healthy subjects. If confirmed in large-cohort studies, these findings could represent an innovative and non-invasive method with a potential impact in clinical practice in early detection of PDAC. ABSTRACT: Simultaneous detection of multiple analytes from a single biological sample is gaining more attention in the development of more reliable and point-of-care diagnostic devices. We developed a multiplexed strategy that combined outcomes of clinical biomarkers with analysis of the protein corona that forms around graphene oxide sheets upon exposure to patient’s plasma. As a paradigmatic case study, we selected pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), mainly because of the absence of effective detection strategies that resulted in an extremely low five-year survival rate after diagnosis (<10%). Association of protein corona analysis and haemoglobin levels discriminated PDAC patients from healthy volunteers in up to 90% of cases. If further confirmed in larger-cohort studies, this approach may be used in the detection of PDAC.