Increased Cathepsin B Activity in Pancreatic Juice from a Patient with Pancreatic Cancer

To the Editor: The possibility that abnormalities in pancreatic secretion precede pancreatic cancers or indicate their presence in the initial stages could be important for early detection. Although pancreatic secretory patterns for a number of enzymes and proteins have been established for healthy volunteers, 1 , 2 we have been unable to find any comparable profiles for patients with pancreatic cancer. We recently obtained a 30–minute collection of pure pancreatic juice (PPJ) from a patient with cancer of the pancreas by cannulation of the pancreatic duct and sequential stimulation of the pancreas with secretin and cholecystokinin-pancreozymin. 1 The patient was a 58-year-old man with . . . No extract is available for articles shorter than 400 words.