Mayo Clinic AI Detects Pancreatic Cancer Up to Three Years Early

Mayo Clinic says it has developed an artificial intelligence (AI) model that can help specialists detect pancreatic cancer on routine abdominal CT scans up to three years before clinical diagnosis.

In an announcement on Wednesday, the clinic said this is achievable by identifying subtle radiomic signatures before tumors appear.

This tool aims to improve outcomes for one of the deadliest cancers by enabling intervention at a stage when curative treatment remains possible.

The findings were published in the journal Gut as part of Mayo’s multiyear research, building on prior models that achieved earlier detection around 475 days ahead.

“A Mayo Clinic-developed artificial intelligence (AI) model can help specialists detect pancreatic cancer on routine abdominal CT scans up to three years before clinical diagnosis,” the report read.

“It identifies subtle signs of disease before tumors are visible, when curative treatment may still be possible. The findings, published in Gut, mark a milestone in Mayo Clinic’s multiyear research effort to enable earlier detection of one of the deadliest cancers.”

According to the report, the study validates this next-generation AI model using data and workflows that mirror clinical practice, including CT scans from multiple institutions, imaging systems and protocols.

It stated that researchers used the AI model to analyze nearly 2,000 CT scans, including scans from patients later diagnosed with pancreatic cancer — all originally interpreted as normal.

The report said the system, called the Radiomics-based Early Detection Model (REDMOD), identified 73% of those prediagnostic cancers at a median of about 16 months before diagnosis — nearly double the detection rate of specialists reviewing the same scans without AI assistance.

The advantage, it revealed, was even greater at earlier time points because in scans obtained more than two years before diagnosis, the AI identified nearly three times as many early cancers that would otherwise go undetected.

Pancreatic cancer remains one of the deadliest cancers because it rarely causes detectable signs in its earliest stages. More than 85% of patients receive a diagnosis after the disease has already spread, and five-year survival rates remain below 15%, according to the National Cancer Institute. Projections show it will become the second-leading cause of cancer-related death in the U.S. by 2030.

“The greatest barrier to saving lives from pancreatic cancer has been our inability to see the disease when it is still curable,” says Ajit Goenka, M.D., the study’s senior author, and a Mayo Clinic radiologist and nuclear medicine specialist.

“This AI can now identify the signature of cancer from a normal-appearing pancreas, and it can do so reliably over time and across diverse clinical settings.”

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