Increased expression of MUC1 in advanced pancreatic cancer.

Background: MUC1 is associated with tumor invasion and metastasis, and is expressed in pancreatic cancer with a high frequency. This study explored whether MUC1 expression affected the survival of patients with pancreatic cancer.

Methods: Tissue specimens obtained from 70 patients with invasive ductal carcinoma of the pancreas, in pTNM stage III or IV, were immunostained with the anti-MUC1 monoclonal antibody DF3. The results of immunostaining were determined to be positive when more than 50% of the total cancer cells were positively stained. Association of the expression of the DF3 epitope with clinicopathological parameters or patients' survival was statistically evaluated.

Results: The incidence of positivity of MUC1 expression was 55.7% (39/70) and this incidence was significantly higher in pTNM stage IV than in stage III (odds ratio [OR], 4.015; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.459-11.0541; P = 0.0076). As there was a clear difference in overall survival between pTNM stages III and IV ( P = 0.0016), the effect of MUC1 expression on survival was separately evaluated in each stage. It was shown that the expression of MUC1 was associated with unfavorable overall survival in stage IV ( P = 0.0197).

Conclusions: Our data suggest that the expression of MUC1 may be related to the progression of pancreatic cancer.