Prognostic significance of thymidylate synthase expression in pancreatic adenocarcinoma: A meta-analysis

Abstract

The prognostic significance of thymidylate synthase (TS) overexpression in pancreatic adenocarcinoma has been extensively investigated; however, data on the survival of patients with pancreatic adenocarcinoma remain equivocal. We performed a meta-analysis of previous studies to assess the effects of TS overexpression on the overall survival (OS) of patients with pancreatic adenocarcinoma, using hazard ratio (HR) with its 95% confidence interval (CI). A total of 5 studies, including 425 patients, were subjected to the final analysis. The pooled HR was 0.72 (95% CI: 0.41-1.25; Z=1.18, P=0.238), indicating that TS expression exerted no significant survival effect on patients with pancreatic adenocarcinoma. The combined HR was 0.46 (95% CI: 0.31-0.68; Z=3.95, P<0.001), limiting the analysis to the studies assessing R0 resection patients, which indicated that a high expression of TS was significantly correlated with better OS in patients with pancreatic adenocarcinoma who underwent R0 resection. This meta-analysis identified TS as an independent factor predicting favourable outcome following R0 curative resection in patients with pancreatic adenocarcinoma.

Prognostic Value of c-MET Expression in Patients With Pancreatic Cancer Receiving Adjuvant and Neoadjuvant Chemoradiation Therapy

“…We demonstrated the predictive value of this protein in 2 separate patient cohorts who received different therapies. Additionally, we incorporated 2 known biomarkers for pancreatic cancer, DPC4 (3, 4) and TS (10, 11), to create a multi-protein predictor of distant metastasis in patients receiving multimodality therapy. The predictor divided our patient population in approximately half.…”

“…In pancreatic cancer, a study by Hu et al (10) found that high TS expression was associated with poorer survival in patients who underwent surgery. In contrast, smaller studies examining the prognostic utility of TS in pancreatic cancer have demonstrated conflicting results (11).…”