The presence of gallstone disease may be a harbinger of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), researchers suggest after showing an association between the two in a SEER-Medicare database analysis. Patients with PDAC were six times more likely to have had gallstone disease in the year prior to diagnosis than noncancer patients, they found.
"We can't be certain at this time as to whether gallstone disease is a precursor to PDAC or whether it is the end result of PDAC, but we do know there is an association and we plan to explore it further," commented study author Teviah Sachs, MD, MPH, Boston Medical Center, Massachusetts.
"We don't want anyone with gallstone disease to think that they have pancreatic cancer because, certainly, the overwhelming majority of patients with gallstone disease do not have pancreatic cancer," he emphasized.
"But I would say to physicians that if you have a patient who presents with gallstone disease and they have other symptoms, you should not necessarily attribute those symptoms just to their gallstone disease," Sachs commented.
"The diagnosis of pancreatic cancer should be on the differential in patients who present with symptoms that might not otherwise correlate with typical gallstones," he added.
Sachs was speaking at a press briefing ahead of Digestive Disease Week 2022 to be held May 21-24 in San Diego, California, where the study will be presented.
