Materials and methods for the differential diagnosis of pacreatic lesions

Abstract

Levels of VEGF-A, VEGF-C and PGE2 were measured in patient groups presenting with different types of pancreatic lesions. Pancreatic fluids that exhibited high levels of VEGF-A and relative low levels of VEGF-C correlated well with a diagnosis of serous cystadenoma. Pancreatic fluids collected from cysts in patients that did not have a clinical diagnosis of pancreatic cancer and that exhibited relatively low levels of VEGF-A correlated with a diagnosis of intraductal papillary mucinous neo-plasms (IPMN). Furthermore, the level of PGE2 increased with dysplastic stage. Contacting pancreatic fluid with reagents that selectively bind to VEGF-A, VEGF-C and PGE2 provide a useful diagnostic tool for identifying patients with these benign, pre-malignant or malignant lesions of the pancreas.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.