July 2026Pancreas Cancer Team

    Advancing Earlier Detection of Pancreatic Cancer

    Report introduction

    Most pancreatic cancers are discovered too late for curative treatment. Today, five-year survival is 12%, and 70-80% of patients are diagnosed at a late stage. Late diagnosis is the greatest barrier to improving survival.

    When pancreatic cancer is found at Stage 1, five-year survival reaches 70-80%. Early detection offers the best chance of cure. The team's goal is to detect pancreatic cancer before symptoms appear, when treatment is most effective and lives can be saved.

    Why Early Detection Matters

    12%

    five-year survival today

    Most pancreatic cancers are discovered too late for curative treatment.

    70-80%

    patients diagnosed at late stage

    Late diagnosis is the greatest barrier to improving survival.

    70-80%

    five-year survival when found at Stage 1

    Early detection offers the best chance of cure.

    Four-Part Pancreas Research Strategy

    The team is bringing together high-risk patient cohorts, innovative imaging technologies, biospecimen resources, and biomarker validation to create the foundation for earlier detection.

    1. Strategy 1

      Build a cohort of high-risk individuals for pancreatic cancer

      Purpose
      Identify who will develop pancreatic cancer and who can safely avoid intervention.
      Progress
      People at high risk — those with pancreatic cysts, or a hereditary mutation or family history — are enrolled in the Stanford High-Risk Cohort. Annual follow-up spans blood collection, clinical data, imaging, biospecimens, and risk factor tracking, feeding biomarker discovery and validation.

    2. Strategy 2

      Develop a simple, portable, point-of-care ultrasound protocol to expand screening

      Purpose
      Make serial pancreatic screening more accessible for people at high risk through a low-cost, handheld ultrasound approach.
      Progress
      Wireless handheld point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) connects to a mobile device for rapid bedside pancreas imaging. Clinical trials are evaluating pancreatic imaging compared to the gold-standard endoscopic ultrasound, testing contrast enhancement with microbubbles, and analyzing radio-frequency data. Contrast-enhanced ultrasound improves visualization of the pancreas using microbubble contrast agents, and quantitative ultrasound uses radio-frequency data to reveal tissue characteristics beyond what the eye can see. Academic, clinical, industry, and foundation partnerships enable this approach to early cancer detection.

    3. Strategy 3

      Establish a translational infrastructure for pancreatic cyst biomarker discovery and validation

      Purpose
      Determine which cysts are precancerous, distinguishing harmless cysts from those most likely to become pancreatic cancer.
      Progress
      Cyst fluid collected from high-risk patients feeds advanced biomarker discovery through glycoproteomics: moving from traditional, less sensitive protein quantification to detailed fingerprinting of the sugars (glycans) that attach to those proteins. Glycans are known to change dramatically during cancer formation. The team will validate the most promising biomarkers to create the foundation for future clinical tests.

    4. Strategy 4

      Compare the diagnostic performance of commercially available blood tests

      Purpose
      Give physicians and patients independent evidence about which test performs best and how these tests should complement MRI and endoscopic ultrasound for people at high risk.
      Progress
      The team is launching a comparative diagnostic study of these tests among high-risk patients undergoing surgery for suspected pancreatic cancer. The study will conduct the first head-to-head comparison of leading commercially available blood tests in high-risk patients, determine which tests most accurately detect pancreatic cancer and distinguish cancer from benign disease, and generate the evidence needed to inform future screening recommendations and help patients and physicians make confident decisions.

    Pancreas Team: Looking Ahead

    The team will expand cohort enrollment and follow-up, advance clinical trials and optimize imaging technologies, discover and validate biomarkers that identify cancer earlier, and define evidence-based screening strategies for high-risk patients.

    Explore Pancreatic ResearchSupport the Research

    Source: Canary Foundation Pancreas Cancer Team Program Report, July 2026.