The impact of intratumoral hENT1 expression on survival in patients with pancreatic cancer treated with gemcitabine and tegafur in adjuvant setting

Summary. Pancreatic cancer (PC) is one of the most frequent causes of death in cancer mortality. Fluorpyrimіdine and gemcitabine is a popular combination in palliative treatment of PC. For the first time this combination was used in adjuvant setting in Japan in 2002. The combination can influence long term survival but its effect is different depending on tumor cell phenotype. The aim of this study is to investigate the relevance between intratumoral hENT1 expression and response to gemcitabine + tegafur (GemTeg) scheme in PC patients in adjuvant setting. 62 PC patients after curative resection from 2012 until 2016 were involved in the study. Adjuvant chemotherapy started at least after 2 weeks postoperatively using new regime GemTeg. Ductal adenocarcinoma of the pancreas was diagnosed at routine histological examination prior to immunohistochemical investigation. Overall survival was evaluated by Kaplan — Meyer and campared by log-rank test. The overall survival in among patients treated with GemTeg regime was statistically higher in those with high hENT1 expression then in those with low hENT1 expression (p=0,005). Median overall survival was 36 and 20 months for patients with high and low hENT1 expression, correspondingly. Consequently, the level of intratumoral immunohistochemical expression of hENT1 may predict the response to GemTeg adjuvant chemotherapy regime in patients with PC.