ABSTRACT
Purpose To investigate the expression of secreted frizzled-related protein 4 (SFRP4) and to evaluate its clinical significance in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC).Methods RT-PCR was performed to analyze SFRP4 mRNA expression level in 30 paired PDAC lesion and matched adjacent non-tuimor tissue.Immunohistochemistry staining detection of 205 matched cases tissue microarray was conducted to explore SFRP4 protein expression pattern.The correlation between SFRP4 and clinical characteristics was also analyzed,including overall survival.Results SFRP4 expression pattern both at mRNA and protein level in PDAC lesion was higher than that in matched adjacent non-tumor tissue.At mRNA level,to found that expression of SFRP4 was elevated in 90％ (27/30) of PDAC tissues (P =0.007 2).To found that high expression of SFRP4 was detected in 56.5％ (116/205) of PDAC tissue,while only 28.8％ (59/205) in the adjacent non-tumor tissue.Moreover,no significant association was observed between SFRP4 expression and clinical characteristics.Kaplan-Meier survival analysis showed high level of SFRP4 expression was correlated with poor overall survival (x2 =3.467,P =0.024).Conclusion SFRP4 can be a novel prognostic biomarker in PDAC.