Pancreatic biomarkers: Could they be the answer?

Table 4 Biomarkers in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma

Biomarker	Prognostic biomarker	Predictive biomarker	Comments and references
MUC1	Yes		Predictive of early cancer-related death[37]
MSLN	Yes		Predictive of early cancer-related death[37]
6-gene signature	Yes		Expression of FOSB, KLF6, NFKBIZ, ATP4A, GSG1 and SIGLEC11 is related with metastatic spread[38]
VEGF	Yes		Worse survival in resected PDA[39]
p16	Yes		Higher expression was related to poorer prognosis[40]
TP53	Yes		Relation with tumour dedifferentiation and higher locorregional recurrence[40]
SMAD4	Yes		Higher Smad4/Dpc4 was related to bigger tumours, lymph node metastases and shorter survival[40]. Higher relapse rate (distant spread)[41]. Loss of expression correlated with resectability and better survival after surgery[42]
EGFR			No predictive/prognostic power[43,44]
K-ras	Yes		Better prognosis in Kras wild-type tumours[43,44]
RRM1	Yes	Yes	High expression of RRM1 showed significantly better overall survival[45-47] and worse response to treatment[47-49]
ERCC1	Yes		High ERCC1 expression showed significantly better overall survival[47,50,51]. No predictive power[49]
CTCs	Yes		More studies are awaited[52]
hENT1	Yes	Yes	High expression of hNENt1: worse prognosis, higher response to gemcitabine in the adjuvant setting; unclear impact in metastatic patients[50,53-57]
HuR	Yes	Yes	Low expression of HuR: worse prognosis[58] and better response to gemcitabine[59,60]
SPARC	Yes		Expression of SPARC in the peritumoural stroma is related with worse prognosis[61,62]. No predictive effect
CTGF			Preclinical data seem to suggest prognostic impact and potential predictive power for FB-3019[63-66]

VEGF: Vascular endothelial growth factor; EGFR: Epidermal growth factor receptor; CTCs: Circulating tumour cells; SPARC: Secreted protein acidic and rich in cysteine; CTGF: Connective tissue growth factor.