EXPRESSION OF CD44 AND ITS ISOFORMS V4, V5, V6, V7, AND V10 - NEW PROGNOSTIC PARAMETERS IN DUCTAL PANCREATIC-CARCINOMA

Prognostically relevant factors based on the histological assessment o f the resected pancreas are known. However, additional parameters, suc h as biological staging of the intrinsic malignant potentiality of the tumor, would be useful. There has been no uniform finding of a relati onship between CD44 variant expression and tumor progression. Method: We assessed the expression pattern and prognostic impact of CD44 stand ard and CD44 isoforms v4, v5, v6, v7 and v10 in 40 ductal pancreatic c arcinomas by immunochemistry on paraffin-embedded tumor material in pa tients after tumor resection. At the time of the investigation neither histomorphological parameters nor the survival time were known. Resul ts: There was no correlation between the histomorphological parameter and the expression of CD44 splice variants. CD44 splice variants v4-v1 0 were almost only expressed in tumor tissue. In ductal pancreatic car cinoma, patients with an overexpression of CD44 splice variants had a worse prognosis. However, because of the small number of cases this wa s statistically not significant. Conclusion: CD44 splice variants may have an influence on prognosis in ductal pancreatic carcinoma. However , further investigation on a larger number of patients is necessary to confirm these results.