Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma with acinar-to-ductal metaplasia-like cancer cells shows increased cellular proliferation.

Background/objectives: Acinar-to-ductal metaplasia (ADM) has been shown to contribute to the development of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) in genetically engineered mouse models, but little is known about whether acinar cell plasticity contributes to carcinogenesis in human PDAC. We aimed to assess whether cancer cells that stain positive for amylase and CK19 (ADM-like cancer cells) are present in human resected PDAC and to investigate their role in tumor progression.

Methods: We immunohistochemically investigated the presence of ADM-like cancer cells, and compared the clinical and histological parameters of PDAC patients with and without ADM-like cancer cells.