The Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center researchers have developed a new computer software tool that can predict a person's chances of carrying a gene for hereditary pancreatic cancer and can help physicians and genetic counselors decide who would benefit from early screening, News-Medical.Net reports.
The software tool, called PancPRO, is a risk calculator that determines a probability percentage score of whether a person carries a pancreatic cancer gene. The software is based on similar tools for breast and colon cancers.
Alison Klein, director of the National Familial Pancreas Tumor Registry, and her colleagues tested the software program's effectiveness by inputting the family history information of more than 6,000 individuals and 961 families when they joined the Hopkins pancreas cancer registry several years ago.
PancPRO correctly identified the risk of pancreatic cancer 75% of the time, while current practices can identify the risk of developing cancer about 61% of the time, according to a report published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
Klein said that the software model also needs to be tested on populations other than the Hopkins registry and that she hopes to determine if insurers will pay for the screening procedures. Her group also will study the effectiveness of PancPRO compared to current criteria based on the number of family members with the disease (News-Medical.Net, 4/18).