ABSTRACT
Objective To explore the clinical significance of ? catenin expression in pancreatic carcinoma.Methods The immunohistochemical staining was performed to detect the expression of ? catenin in the specimens of 46 patients with pancreatic carcinoma and the results were statistically analyzed. Results The abnormal expression rate on the membrane was 54.3%, the poorer the differentiation, the higher the abnormal expression rate. The levels of the cases in whom metastasis occurred were much higher than those without metastasis. The abnormal cytoplasm expression rate was 21.7%,which had not significant correlation with the clinical indexes, such as staging, tumor size, grading and metastasis. In 23 patients who accepted intervention chemotherapy before operation, the cytoplasm expression rate in those with tumor mass smaller was 0, which was evidently lower than that of those without tumor mass change (33.3%). Moreover, the abnormal membrane and cytoplasm expression rates had remarkable concordance (63.0%).Conclusion The abnormal membrane expression of ? catenin may accelerate metastasis, and the abnormal expression of ? catenin in cytoplasm may result in cell proliferation.