A Community-Based Pancreatic Cancer Screening Study in High-Risk Individuals: Preliminary Efficacy and Safety Results

Pancreatic cancer (PC) screening recommendations have been based on studies performed solely at high-volume academic centers. To make PC screening more widely available, community-based efforts are essential. We implemented a prospective PC screening study in the community of Fairfield County, CT, and report our early safety and efficacy results.

Eligible individuals were enrolled into an investigator-initiated study and underwent a baseline and 3 annual magnetic resonance imagings/magnetic resonance cholangiopancreatographies (MRIs/MRCPs) with gadolinium, biannual blood donations for biobanking, and assessments for anxiety and depression. All MRIs were presented at a multidisciplinary board to determine whether further investigation was warranted.

Seventy-five individuals have been enrolled and 201 MRIs performed over a 2.6-year average length of follow-up. Abnormal pancreatic findings (predominantly small cysts) were detected in 58.7% of the participants. Among these, 6.7% underwent endoscopic ultrasound, with 1 case complicated by postprocedural pancreatitis. One surgical resection was performed on a 4.7-cm intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasm with a focus on low-grade pancreatic intraepithelial neoplasia. One incidental finding of fibrosing mediastinitis was detected. Anxiety and depression scores decreased over the course of this study from 21.4% to 5.4% and 10.7% to 3.6%, respectively.

This preliminary report supports the feasibility of performing MRI/magnetic resonance cholangiopancreatographies-based PC screening as part of a clinical trial in a community setting. A longer follow-up is needed to better assess safety and efficacy. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report from a community-based PC screening effort ( clinicaltrials.gov ID: NCT03250078).