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Cyclin E Expression and Outcome in Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma

¹ Cancer Research Program, Garvan Institute of Medical Research; ² Division of Surgery, St. Vincent's Clinic; ³ Institute of Clinical Pathology and Medical Research, Westmead Hospital; and ⁴ Department of Surgery, Bankstown Hospital, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

Requests for reprints: Davendra Segara, Cancer Research Program, Garvan Institute of Medical Research, 384 Victoria Street, Darlinghurst, Sydney, New South Wales 2010, Australia. Phone: 61-2-9295-8320; Fax: 61-2-9295-8321. E-mail: d.segara{at}garvan.org.au

The association of high cyclin E expression with poor outcome in some cancers, in particular breast cancer, suggests that it may play an important role in tumor biology. Because the influence of cyclin E expression on outcome is yet to be examined in pancreatic cancer, we assessed the relationship between the expression of cyclin E, p27^Kip1, and survival in a large cohort of pancreatic cancer patients with long-term follow-up. Expression of cyclin E and p27^Kip1 was assessed by immunohistochemistry using tissue microarrays of tumor samples from 118 patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (75 resections and 43 biopsies). High cyclin E expression (>10% positive nuclei) was identified in 39 of 118 (33%) patients. This was associated with poor prognosis on univariate analysis in the whole cohort (P = 0.005), as well as in the subgroup of 75 patients who underwent operative resection (P = 0.04). On multivariate analysis, high cyclin E expression was an independent predictor of poor survival in both the entire cohort (P = 0.005) and the resected subgroup (P = 0.03), and was superior to all tested clinicopathologic factors (tumor size, lymph node metastases, differentiation, margin involvement, and perineural invasion) as a marker of survival. Low p27^Kip1 expression (<5% positive nuclei) was present in 41 of 111 (37%) patients, but was not associated with survival, and coexpression of p27^Kip1 did not influence the association of high cyclin E expression with poor survival. High cyclin E expression is a strong independent predictor of poor outcome in patients with pancreatic cancer. Thus, if these data are confirmed in independent cohorts, measurement of cyclin E may add significant prognostic information to the currently used clinicopathologic variables and hence have potential clinical utility in the management of this disease. (Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2006;15(10):1941–7)