Patent ID: 8679788

Claim:
A method for detecting the presence of pancreatic cancer or chronic pancreatitis in a human subject, the method comprising: obtaining a sample of pancreatic juice from the subject, the sample comprising nucleic acids from the subject; creating a reaction mixture by hybridizing the nucleic acids to a plurality of oligonucleotide pairs to detect both wild type KRAS2 and mutant KRAS2 sequences in the nucleic acid to form a reaction mixture, wherein each oligonucleotide pair: comprises a first oligonucleotide and a second oligonucleotide, wherein each first oligonucleotide comprises a first gene specific region and a first primer region, each second oligonucleotide comprises a second gene specific region and a second primer region, and either the first oligonucleotide or the second oligonucleotide comprises a detection region; and in oligonucleotide pairs to detect mutant KRAS2 sequence either the first oligonucleotide or the second oligonucleotide comprises a nucleotide in the gene specific region that detects one of a G35A, a G35T, or a G34C nucleotide substitution in the KRAS2 sequence; and in each oligonucleotide pair the first oligonucleotide and the second oligonucleotide are suitable for ligation to one another; subjecting the reaction mixture to a ligation reaction to form ligation products from said oligonucleotide pairs to detect both wild type KRAS2 and mutant KRAS2 sequences; amplifying said ligation products to form wild type KRAS2 and mutant KRAS2 amplification products; detecting the quantity of the wild type KRAS2 and mutant KRAS2 amplification products; calculating a mutation level, wherein said mutation level is equal to quantity of mutant KRAS2/(quantity of mutant KRAS2+quantity of wild-type KRAS2); and detecting a mutation level that is less than 0.5% and correlating the mutation level that is less than 0.5% with the presence of chronic pancreatitis in the subject; or detecting a mutation level that is greater than 0.5% and less than 80% and correlating the mutation level that is greater than 0.5% and less than 80% with the presence of pancreatic cancer in the subject.