The high mortality rate of pancreatic cancer is primarily due to the advanced stage at diagnosis in the majority of cases. The five-year survival rate for this cancer is only 9%, the poorest survival rate of any major cancer, making pancreatic cancer the third leading cancer killer that affects both men and women in the United States. Five-year survival can be improved if the cancer is detected earlier.[2] It is thus important to apply cancer genetics, risk assessment, and early detection that can identify a population of high-risk individuals who can benefit from early detection.

A key strategy for effective early detection research in pancreatic cancer is to identify and build longitudinal high-risk cohorts and maintain data from baseline to follow up, and biobanking of repeated (annual) non-invasive biospecimen collections. The research to be performed would compare samples of participants who develop cancer over time compared to those who do not. Tests that would be applied to the biospecimen collections would use subsets of participants in designs that would provide the maximum amount of information about the performance of the assays in predicting who has cancer at an early stage [3,4].

The collection of biosamples and data for the family-based biobank resource/registry proposed here is partially funded by NCI funded U01 grants, through the PCDC [1]. At Mayo Clinic, NCI grant U01 CA210138 is the funding source. The PCDC is committed to developing a longitudinal cohort (registry) of individuals and family members currently without pancreatic cancer, but who are at high risk due to family history of pancreatic cancer or predisposition gene mutation status. High-risk individuals will be recruited at each site, and biospecimens will be logged, stored, administered, and studied by consensus protocols of members of the PCDC. The maintenance of protocols will be maintained by the PCDC Administrative Core at Mayo Clinic. The PCDC cohort will require a long-term investment and will be most successful with multiple contributing sites.