DETECTION OF C-KI-RAS POINT MUTATION FROM PANCREATIC-JUICE - A USEFULDIAGNOSTIC-APPROACH FOR PANCREATIC-CARCINOMA

Cytological diagnosis of pancreatic carcinoma sometimes poses difficul ties in distinguishing malignant from benign cells. Recent molecular s tudy of pancreatic carcinoma has revealed a very high incidence of a p oint mutation of the c-Ki-ras oncogene at codon 12 in this neoplasm. T o take advantage of this technique for the diagnosis of pancreatic car cinoma, we attempted to amplify the c-Ki-ras gene from endoscopically obtained pancreatic juice by isolation of DNA and polymerase chain rea ction (PCR) coupled with restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFL P). PCR was possible in approx 70% of the cases. A point mutation was nonradioisotopically detected in 4 of 6 pancreatic carcinomas and in o ne intraductal papillary neoplasm, whereas no mutation was detected in other cases. Thus, this method was thought to be useful for the diagn osis of pancreatic carcinoma.