promoter is frequently methylated in pancreatic juice of patients with pancreatic carcinomas or periampullary tumors.

Early detection of pancreatic and periampullary neoplasms is critical to improve their clinical outcome. The present authors previously demonstrated that DNA hypermethylation of and promoters is frequently detected in pancreatic tumor cells. The aim of the present study was to assess their prevalence in pancreatic juice of carcinomas of the pancreas and periampullary area. A total of 135 pancreatic juices obtained from 85 pancreatic cancer (PC), 26 ampullary carcinoma (AC), 10 intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasm (IPMN) and 14 chronic pancreatitis (CP) patients were analyzed. The methylation status of the and promoters was analyzed using methylation specific-melting curve analysis (MS-MCA). mutations were also tested with allele-specific quantitative polymerase chain reaction amplification. Out of the 5 promoters analyzed, (71%) and (65%) were the most frequently methylated in PC juice. methylation was also detected at a high frequency in AC (76%) and IPMN (80%), but only occasionally observed in CP (7%). methylation had a high sensitivity (71-80%) for all types of cancer analyzed. The panel (where a sample scored as positive when ≥2 markers were methylated) did not outperform as a single marker. Finally, detection in pancreatic juice offered a lower sensitivity (50%) and specificity (71%) for detection of any cancer. hypermethylation in pancreatic juice, as assessed by MS-MCA, is a frequent event of potential clinical usefulness in the diagnosis of pancreatic and periampullary neoplasms.