Patent ID: 7052859

Claim:
A method for detecting pancreatic cancer in a patient, said method comprising: a) providing at least a first and second biological sample, said first sample being obtained from said patient, and said second sample being obtained from a healthy subject for use as a negative control; b) isolating the peripheral blood mononuclear cells from said first and second samples; c) contacting said isolated peripheral blood mononuclear cells with an antibody or fragment thereof having binding affinity for MUC4, such that MUC4 antibody-peripheral blood mononuclear cell complexes or MUC4 antibody fragment-peripheral blood mononuclear cell complexes form if MUC4 is present; and d) detecting said complexes by a method selected from the group consisting of labeled primary antibody detection, labeled secondary antibody detection, flow cytometric analysis, immunochemical detection, radioimmunoassy, fluorescent immunoassay, enzyme-linked immunoassay, and immunoblot analysis; wherein the presence of said complexes is indicative of pancreatic cancer in said patient.