A team of scientists have said that they are looking to develop a blood test for the earliest stages of pancreatic cancer.

They said that the new test could dramatically improve the chances of surviving the disease. The prototype test is being developed but the scientists said that they believe that it can be used in the future to diagnose pancreatic cancer before spreads widely. Experts said that pancreatic cancer is one of the most lethal cancers as many patients are diagnosed too late for effective surgery.

A trial on patients, who were earlier diagnosed, have shown that the blood test is 100 per cent accurate. Other preliminary trials on some patients with "precancerous lesions" suggest it could also detect earlier stages of the disease.

Raghu Kalluri, chair of cancer biology at the University of Texas in Houston, said, "Studies comparing stage of disease with outcome following surgery suggest that death rates for pancreatic cancer would be reduced if the disease were diagnosed at an earlier stage. This presents an unprecedented opportunity for informative early detection of pancreatic cancer and in designing potential curative surgical options." The study was published in the journal Nature.