An analysis of 28 cases of pancreatic carcinoma with elevated serum alpha-fetoprotein reported in the medical literature / 中华肝胆外科杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To study the clinicopathologic characteristics,the optimal therapy and prognosis of patients with pancreatic carcinoma with elevated serum alpha-fetoprotein (AFP).Methods CNKI,Wanfang database,VIP Database for Chinese Technical Periodicals,PUBMED and EMBASE were searched.Studies which met the inclusion criteria were evaluated.Results 24 reports were found which included 28 patients with pancreatic carcinoma with elevated serum AFP.The carcinoma was characterized clinically by a predilection for older male.The majority of patients had metastases at the time of diagnosis,especially liver metastases.Histopathologically,not all tumors were hepatoid carcinoma,and acinar cell carcinoma was most common.Surgical resection was the optimal treatment for patients at an early stage.Combined therapies were used on patients at an advanced stage.Patients with hepatoid carcinoma of the pancreas might be sensitive to treatment similarly to hepatocellular carcinoma.In AFP-producing pancreatic carcinoma,serum AFP level was a useful marker for diagnosis and evaluation of therapeutic response and recurrence.However,there were no sufficient evidence to support whether pancreatic carcinoma with elevated serum AFP was associated with a higher frequency of liver metastasis and poor survival.Conclusions Further studies are needed to identify the prognosis and the effective therapies for the AFP expression variance of pancreatic carcinoma with elevated serum AFP.Detecting AFP and variants of AFP are important for the early diagnosis of pancreatic carcinoma with elevated serum AFP,and increase in therapeutic response and prog nosis.