Abnormal expression levels of sMICA and NKG2D are correlated with poor prognosis in pancreatic cancer

Soluble major histocompatibility complex class I-related chain A molecules (sMICA) and natural-killer group 2 member D (NKG2D) not only correlate with tumorigenesis and progression, but also with tumor invasion and metastasis. In this study, we used immunohistochemistry to investigate the correlation and prognostic significance of the differential expression of sMICA and NKG2D in pancreatic carcinoma and paracarcinoma tissues from 70 patients with pancreatic carcinomas. The results showed that sMICA expression was significantly (P<0.05) higher in tumor tissues (67.1%) than that in adjacent nontumor tissues (31.4%), whereas NKG2D expression was significantly (P<0.001) lower in tumor tissues (32.9%) than that in adjacent nontumor tissues (60.0%). Spearman's rank correlation test showed a negative correlation between the expression of sMICA and that of NKG2D (r=-0.676, P<0.001). Kaplan-Meier survival analysis showed that a high sMICA expression was significantly correlated with decreased disease-free survival (DFS) (P<0.001) and overall survival (OS) (P<0.001), while a high NKG2D expression was significantly associated with increased DFS (P=0.001) and OS (P=0.001) of the patients. Multivariate analysis showed that a high sMICA expression was an independent predictive factor for poor DFS (P<0.001) and OS (P=0.012); but low NKG2D expression was not an independent prognostic factor for poor DFS (P=0.238) and OS (P=0.574). In conclusion, our findings suggest that the expression levels of sMICA and NKG2D are abnormal and negatively correlated with one another in pancreatic carcinoma tissues; they may be considered as valuable biomarkers for the prognosis of pancreatic carcinoma.