Method to Identify Diagnostic Rules for Pancreatic Cancer Using Laboratory Data Based on Bayesian Estimation.

Early diagnosis and treatment of pancreatic cancer is challenging. We attempted to find diagnostic rules for pancreatic cancer from laboratory data in the Osaka University Hospital's data warehouse using Bayesian estimation. We calculated the pretest odds based on the number of laboratory tests and the cutoff value at which the diagnostic accuracy is over 20%. By this method, we identified diagnostic rules of 6 types for one item and 79 types for 2 items. Pancreatic cancer is difficult to detect from only general laboratory tests. However, this method may be promising in early diagnosis.