Tumor protein predicts survival after pancreatic cancer surgery

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Survival after pancreatectomy for pancreatic cancer is twice as long when the tumor is negative for the calcium-binding protein S100A2 as when tumors express high levels of this protein, a study indicates.

The findings were reported in Hollywood, Florida, this week at the annual Molecular Markers in Cancer meeting, co-sponsored by the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the National Cancer Institute and the European Organization of Research and Treatment of Cancer.

"While this research is still at a very early stage, we've found that testing for the S100A2 protein could help us identify which patients will be most likely to benefit from surgery, which can be complicated and risky," study leader Dr. Andrew Biankin of the Garvan Institute of Medical Research and Bankstown Hospital, Sydney, Australia, noted in a written statement.

In a large cohort of pancreatic patients, Dr. Biankin and colleagues assessed the relationship between disease-specific survival and levels of 17 candidate biomarkers known, or suspected, to be aberrantly expressed in pancreatic cancer.

Of the 17 candidate markers examined, the only independent predictor of outcome following surgery was the S100A2 level. Patients with elevated S100A2 tumor expression had a median survival of 8.8 months, compared with 19.4 months in patients whose tumors did not contain this protein.

It is noteworthy, the researchers say, that patients with S100A2-negative tumors had a significant survival benefit from pancreatectomy even in the presence of involved surgical margins (median survival 15.7 months; p = 0.0007) or lymph node metastases (median survival 17.4 months; p = 0.0002).

In conclusion, Dr. Biankin and colleagues say S100A2 expression "is the best predictor of response to pancreatectomy for pancreatic cancer reported to date, and high S100A2 expression may represent the development of a metastatic phenotype."

"Prospective measurement of S100A2 expression in diagnostic biopsies has potential clinical utility as a predictive marker of response to pancreatectomy and other therapies that target loco-regional disease," they add.

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