UCLA

The National Cancer Institute and the National Institute for Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases initiated the Consortium for the Study of Chronic Pancreatitis, Diabetes, and Pancreatic Cancer (CPDPC) in 2015 (the CPDPC's origin, structure, governance, and research objectives are described in another article in this journal). One of the key objectives of CPDPC is to assemble a cohort of 10,000 subjects 50 years or older with new-onset diabetes, called the NOD cohort. Using a define, enrich, and find early detection approach, the aims of the NOD study are to (a) estimate the 3-year probability of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) in NOD (define), (b) establish a biobank of clinically annotated biospecimens from presymptomatic PDAC and control new-onset type 2 diabetes mellitus subjects, (c) conduct phase 3 validation studies of promising biomarkers for identification of incident PDAC in NOD patients (enrich), and (d) provide a platform for development of a future interventional screening protocol for early detection of PDAC in patients with NOD that incorporates imaging studies and/or clinical algorithms (find). It is expected that 85 to 100 incidences of PDAC will be diagnosed during the study period in this cohort of 10,000 patients.