Early Diagnosis of Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma by Signal-Enhanced Lateral Flow Immunoassay: SELFI

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is linked to high incidence and mortality rates because it is often detected in later stages, when the prognosis is poor. However, the current state-of-the-art methods for diagnosing early PDAC tend to be invasive, time-consuming, and unreliable, primarily due to the difficulties associated with the early detection of pancreatic cancers. Here, we report a quick and sensitive method for the early diagnosis of PDAC using a signal-enhanced lateral flow immunoassay called SELFI. We developed SELFI, which can generate a strong colorimetric signal through multiple hotspots formed by plasmonic gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) assembled on a silica bead. Our SELFI assay achieved a 28-fold increase in the limit of detection compared to conventional lateral flow immunoassays using 20 nm AuNPs, providing results within 15 min. We demonstrated that SELFI can be utilized for the early diagnosis of PDAC, as indicated by a receiver operating characteristic curve and a larger area under the curve compared to the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (**** P  < 0.0001). SELFI's effective diagnostic features could enhance the timely identification of PDAC and may also serve in the early diagnosis of a range of other diseases.