Predictive and Prognostic Value of Human Equilibrative Nucleoside Transporter 1 in Advanced Pancreatic Carcinoma, SARAH M.F. AHMED, HESHAM TAWFIK, EIMAN ADEL H. SAAD and WAEL MANSOUR SAID
Abstract
Background: Pancreatic cancer is a very aggressive disease.
5-year survival rates remain low at 10% to 30% even
with adjuvant therapy, as most patients will succumb to the
disease secondary to high rate of local and systemic recurrences.
Gemcitabine is one of the drugs of choice for the
adjuvant treatment for patients with pancreatic cancer. The
drug is transported into pancreatic cancer cells primarily by
human equilibrative nucleoside transporter 1 (hENT1).
Aim of Study: To evaluate hNET-1 protein expression in
patients with advanced pancreatic cancer treated with gemcitabine-
based chemotherapy as a predictive factor for the
response of treatment as well as prognostic marker for overall
survival and disease progression.
Patients and Methods: Prospective and retrospective study
was conducted on 30 patients presented with advanced pancreatic
cancer; Immuno-histochemical staining of tumor tissue
was performed for detecting hENT 1 expression. All the patients
have been treated with gemcitabine based chemotherapy.
Results: Sixty percent of patients had high hENT 1 expression
and 40% had low hENT1 expression. Overall survival
after median follow-up of 14 months showed that patients
with high hENT1 expression had longer Overall survival than
patients with low hENT1 expression and the difference was
statistically significant (p=0.0025) respectively. Further,
patients with high hENT1 expression showed longer disease
free survival than patients with low hENT1 expression, and
the difference was statistically significant (p=0.002).
Conclusion: A high level of hENT 1 expression is significantly
associated with a longer survival in patients who
received gemcitabine mono therapy. Hence, the study suggests
hENT 1 expression as potential assay for the prediction of
response to gemcitabine based chemotherapy.