Diagnostic Value of K‐ras Mutations in Serum of Pancreatic Cancer Patients

A Colorimetric Method for Detection of K-ras Codon 12 Point Mutations in DNA Extracted from Tissue and Peripheral Blood in Pancreatic Disorders

“…Li et al (2007) stated that if circulating DNA could be used as a surrogate for tumor tissues in detecting molecular markers, such a technique would be very valuable. Our investigation differs from previous investigations (Castells et al 1999;Theodor et al 2000;Maire et al 2002;Li et al 2007) in that we used genomic DNA derived from CFPB rather than from sera and we analyzed paired tissue biopsy and CFPB genomic DNA extracts for each patient sample. Our analysis of the K-ras codon 12 (GGT [ TGT) point mutation correlated mutations in a specific tissue biopsy with the presence or absence of mutations in the circulating genomic DNA from the CFPB.…”

“…Jimeno and Hidalgo (2006) point out that the cellular component of blood can provide genomic DNA, which can be used to determine gene polymorphism in targeted genes as well as in germ-line mutations. Castells et al (1999) and Theodor et al (2000) investigated the presence of K-ras mutations in DNA extracted from the sera of patients with pancreatic cancer. Maire et al (2002) and Li et al (2007) further stated that the detection of K-ras mutations in circulating DNA has a low sensitivity, but a specificity of about 90% for the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer.…”