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Researchers at Mayo Clinic have designed an artificial intelligence model that could predict an individual's risk of developing pancreatic cancer years before diagnosis. The research was presented at the American College of Surgeons (ACS) Clinical Congress 2026 in Washington, Sept. 26–29.

Pancreatic cancer is relatively rare but highly deadly, with about 67,000 new diagnoses and 52,000 deaths in 2026, according to the American Cancer Society. It accounts for about 3% of all new cancers but 8% of all cancer deaths.

"Pancreatic cancer can be curable, but only when we catch it early—and fewer than one in five patients is diagnosed in time," said study co-author Cornelius Thiels, DO, MBA, FACS, a surgical oncologist at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. "As a result, survival for many patients is still measured in months, not years."

Universal screening for pancreatic cancer isn't feasible, Thiels said, so his team set out to develop an AI model that can identify patients at greatest risk of developing cancer of the pancreas.

"We know that pancreatic cancer forms over five to seven years, but the things that a clinician or patient sees don't happen until it's too late," he said.

The model Thiels, lead study author Chris Varghese, MBChB, and their team developed used patients' longitudinal health histories—detailed information in their electronic health records that provides a picture of their health over time—from the Mayo Clinic system.

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