Pancreatic Cancer Course Prognosis: Significance of Molecular-genetic Alterations in the Cancer Cells
In order to evaluate influence of molecular and genetic alterations in the tumor cells on the development of poor results of the pancreatic cancer management 96 patients undergone curative resections and palliative procedures have been investigated and enrolled in the trial. Tumor DNA content was diploid in 25.8 % of the patients and aneuploid in 74.2 % besides aneuploidy of tumor DNA in 92.3 % of G3 tumors. Mutations in the <i>K-ras </i>oncogene occurred in 75.8% tumors without any correlations between <i>K-ras </i>mutation and stage of pancreatic cancer. Mutations in 273 codon ofp53 gene were found in 35.48 % tumors. The mean overall survival for all patients was 11.54 ± 9.27 months, and the survival for patients treated by radical and palliative surgery was 14.8 ± 10.7 and 5.5 ± 2.8 months respectively. The mean survival of patients with diploid and aneuploid tumors was 28.8 ± 16.34 and 11.6 ± 8.8 months respectively (p = 0.006). Molecular alteration index did not have any correlation to the stage of pancreatic cancer and tumor grade. The lower the Index the better was long-term outcome for pancreatic cancer patients. For survivals less than 12 months mean value of Molecular alteration index were 77.27 ± 5.56 %, for patients survived less then 24 months - 45.75 ± 8.34 % and for more than 36 months - 34.6 ± 9.6 %, respectively (p = 0.006).