RESUMO
Objective To investigate expression of E-cadherin (E-cad) and ?-catenin (?-Cat) in pancreatic carcinoma and its relationship with the biological behavior. Methods Immunohistochemistry staining (PicTure TM two steps method) was used to detect E-cad and ?-Cat expression in 47 specimens of paraffin-embeded pancreatic carcinoma and 17 normal pancreas around tumors. Results E-cad and ?-Cat were expressed by normal ductal and acinar cells with typical membranous staining at the intercellular junctions. 17 normal specimens of pancreas strongly expressed E-cad and ?-Cat. The loss and reduction rate of E-cad expression in pancreatic carcinoma was 53.2%(25/47). The significant relationship was observed between low E-cad expression and differentiation,high hyperplastic grade and metastasis (P0.05). There was a positive relationship between the expression of E-cad and ?-Cat in the same specimen (r=0.88,P
