Expression profiles for 14-3-3 zeta and CCL20 in pancreatic cancer and chronic pancreatitis.

Background: Pancreatic cancer (PCA) has a dismal prognosis because it is often diagnosed at an advanced stage. The overall survival rate is <5% after five years. Chronic pancreatitis (CP) is one of the most important risk factors for PCA. A major difficulty is to distinguish between CP and PCA at both clinical and morphologic level. The aim of this study was to assess the impact of the expression profiles for 14-3-3 zeta and CCL20 to histologically discriminate between PCA and CP.

Methods: In PCA (n=138) and CP (n=36) tissue samples, the expression of 14-3-3 zeta and CCL20 was examined by immunohistochemistry. Associations between expression profiles of 14-3-3 zeta and CCL20 expression in PCA, CP as well as MANT (matched adjacent normal tissue) (n=138) and clinicopathologic variables were analyzed.

Results: The expression of CCL20 and 14-3-3 zeta was significantly higher in PCA than in CP and MANT. For CP compared to MANT, no significant differences were observed for expression profiles of both 14-3-3 zeta and CCL20.

Conclusion: CCL20 and 14-3-3 zeta are molecules that play a putative role during tumorgenesis in pancreas, and may therefore be new parameters for histological diagnosis and discrimination between PCA and CP.