Membranous co-expression of EpCAM and CD44s predicts poor prognosis in pancreatic cancer patients

The identification of reliable prognostic markers and valid pharmacological targets can improve the clinical outcomes of pancreatic cancer patients. Metastasis associated molecules EpCAM and CD44s both were reported as potential therapeutic targets and tumor-initiating cells markers for pancreatic cancer. However, the coexpression of EpCAM and CD44 and the corresponding function have not been evaluated in human pancreatic cancer yet. Hence, we investigated whether EpCAM and CD44 were co-expressed in human pancreatic cancer and what the relationship between their co-expression and the clinic-pathological characteristics was. We evaluated and determined the co-expression of EpCAM and CD44 in 146 pairs of resected pancreatic cancer specimens, and the relationship between the co-expression and the patient's overall survival or other biological variables by a well-established immunohistochemical staining using Kaplan-Meier method and X-2 test. Compared with normal pancreas tissues, pancreatic cancer tissues had higher co-expression of membranous EpCAM with CD44s rather than with CD44v6; and their expressions were significantly correlated. Furthermore, the membranous EpCAM and CD44s co-expression acted as an independent prognosis factor on patients' survival time. These data suggested a potential role of co-expression of EpCAM and CD44s in predicting patient's poor prognosis.