Journal of Clinical Pathology 2008;61:31-35
ORIGINAL ARTICLES
Ep-CAM expression in pancreatic and ampullary carcinomas: frequency and prognostic relevance
1 Division of Hematology and Oncology, Innsbruck Medical University, Austria
2 Department of Pathology, Innsbruck Medical University, Austria
3 Department of Biostatistics, Innsbruck Medical University, Austria
4 Tyrolean Cancer Research Institute, Innsbruck Medical University, Austria
Correspondence to:
Dominic Fong, MD, Division of Hematology and Oncology, Anichstrasse 35, A-6020 Innsbruck, Austria; dominic.fong{at}i-med.ac.at
Aims: Pancreatic adenocarcinoma is an aggressive gastrointestinal malignancy with only a few long-term survivors even after radical surgery. Patients with ampullary cancer have a better prognosis but adjuvant therapy needs further improvement. Epithelial cell adhesion molecule (Ep-CAM) is strongly expressed in a variety of epithelial cancers and represents a promising target for immunological tumour therapy. Thus, the aim of this study was to investigate Ep-CAM expression and its potential prognostic impact in pancreatic and ampullary carcinomas.
Methods: Ep-CAM expression was investigated retrospectively by immunohistochemistry in paraffin-embedded primary tumour tissue samples from a series of consecutive patients with pancreatic (n = 153) and ampullary cancer (n = 34).
Results: Ep-CAM overexpression was observed in 85 of 153 pancreatic cancer specimens (56%) and in 29 of 34 ampullary cancer samples (85%). Overall, Ep-CAM failed to be an independent prognostic marker. However, subgroup analyses showed that Ep-CAM overexpression correlated with shorter overall survival among patients with ampullary cancer and advanced stage pancreatic cancer. In the latter subgroup, survival gradually worsened with increasing Ep-CAM scores. Furthermore, in ampullary cancer, Ep-CAM overexpression was found to correlate with tumour stage.
Conclusions: Ep-CAM overexpression was detectable in the majority of cases with pancreatic and ampullary cancer. Therefore, Ep-CAM represents an attractive target for immune-based therapeutic interventions in these tumour entities. However, the prognostic value of Ep-CAM overexpression remains undetermined.
Keywords: epithelial cell adhesion molecule; Ep-CAM; pancreatic cancer; ampullary cancer
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