Serum protein profiles of patients with pancreatic cancer and chronic pancreatitis: searching for a diagnostic protein pattern

In this study, 13 sera from patients with pancreatic cancer, 9 from chronic pancreatitis and 10 from healthy subjects were analyzed by matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI) mass spectrometry. The MALDI mass spectra revealed the presence of several low molecular weight peptides, among which some were detected only in the sera from both pathological conditions. On the other hand many peptides were observed only in control sera, and were absent in the sera from the two diseases. Therefore, MALDI analysis of the low molecular weight fraction (<10000 Da) of sera from patients with pancreatic diseases enabled us to identify the presence of some disease-related signals and also some signals characteristic of normal subjects. Copyright (C) 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.