By Kirell Lakhman

Asuragen today said it expects to debut a homebrew microRNA-based diagnostic to help detect pancreatic cancer from fine-needle aspirate during the second half of the year.

The test will be designed to distinguish pancreatic adenocarcinoma from chronic pancreatitis and other non-cancerous conditions, Asuragen said in a statement. The molecular diagnostics and RNA-based pharmacogenomics-services company said the test will be performed in its CLIA laboratory.

In 2008 Asuragen began offering an miRNA-based diagnostic that helps physicians diagnose pancreatic cancer in formalin-fixed specimens.

To help it develop the FNA assay, Asuragen has signed on researchers from The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center, Dartmouth’s Hitchcock Medical Center, and the University of Sherbrooke.

On the clinical lab side of the collaborations are David Whitcomb, Giant Eagle Professor of Cancer Genetics at The University of Pittsburgh and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center; and Gregory Tsongalis, Director of Molecular Pathology at the Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, NH.

According to NCI, pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma is the most prevalent form of pancreatic cancer.

In Asuragen's statement, David Whitcomb, Chief of the Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, said that "[m]ore accurate diagnosis of pancreatic adenocarcinoma using FNA samples will improve the clinical decisions in cases of suspected pancreatic cancer and help improve the management of patients for which conventional cytopathology is indeterminate.”

Darwin Conwell, associate professor of medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, said “recent data using miRNA in pancreas cancer is promising."