ArticleCommunications medicine2025
Race-based differences in serum biomarkers for cancer-associated cachexia in a diverse cohort of patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma.
Article in Communications medicine, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Prostate cancer research on social media platforms: a bibliometric and thematic analysis.Frontiers in oncology · 2026Pooled it
- GDF15: A Hijacked Metabo-Hormone Orchestrating Cachexia and Immunosuppression in Cancer.Biomolecules · 2026Review
- Pathogenesis, Diagnostic Pathways, and New Therapeutic and Nutritional Strategies for Pancreatic Cancer-Associated Cachexia.Cancers · 2026Review
- Machine Learning-Based Identification of Blood Biomarkers that Distinguish Precachectic and Cachectic Patients with Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2025Article
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47 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundPancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma is projected to become the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths by 2040, with the highest disease burden expected amongst Non-Hispanic Black patients. One of the most significant predictors of poor outcomes is the presence of cancer-associated cachexia (CCa). Yet, race- and ethnicity-specific biomarkers for early CCa diagnosis are lacking.
methodsWe evaluated a panel of candidate biomarkers of CCa in a diverse cohort of patients with pre-treatment serum using multiplex ELISA-based methods.
resultsWe find that growth/differentiation factor-15 (GDF-15) is associated with cachexia severity, is superior to standard biomarkers at classifying cachexia, and differentiates between non-cachexia and pre-cachexia status, but only among Hispanic/Latinx and non-Hispanic White participants. Furthermore, high GDF-15 levels at diagnosis are associated with a greater weight loss from 3.3% (95%CI = -0.14-6.7) to 8.0% (CI = 5.9-10.1) over the 6 months post-diagnosis. Finally, both ENA-78/CXCL5 and GRO-α/CXCL1 are elevated in non-Hispanic Black individuals in a disease-independent manner (P < 0.001 for both analytes).
conclusionsGDF-15 may be a potential biomarker for "pre-cachexia" in the non-Hispanic White and the Hispanic population, but not non-Hispanic Black individuals. These findings underscore the unmet need to enroll non-Hispanic Black participants in clinical trials for CCa.
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