Abstract:      Background and purpose: Recent studies have shown that, the new gene PRR11 had abnormal expression in lung cancer, stomach cancer, speculated that it might be correlated with tumor progression. This study aimed to detect the expression of PRR11 protein in human pancreatic carcinoma, and to analyze the relationship between PRR11 protein level and the clinical pathological parameters of pancreatic carcinoma. Methods: Immunohistochemistry (SP) method was used to detect the expression of PRR11 protein in 32 cases of human pancreatic cancer tissues, 20 cases of paracancerous tissues and 6 cases of normal pancreatic tissue. Chi Square test was used to analyze the relationship between the expression levels of PRR11 protein and the clinical pathological parameters (age, gender, the size of tumor, the location of tumor, differentiation, lymph node metastasis and TNM stage). Results: The positive expression rates of PRR11 protein in pancreatic cancers, paracancerous tissues and normal pancreatic tissues were 78.1% (25/32), 5.0% (1/20) and 0.0% (0/6), respectively. The expression level of PRR11 in pancreatic cancer tissues was significantly higher than those in paracancerous tissues or normal tissues. The positive expression rate of PRR11 protein in pancreatic carcinoma was significantly associated with cell differentiation degree and TNM stage (P<0.05), but not associated with patient age, gender, the size of tumor, the location of tumor and lymph node metastasis (P>0.05). Survival analysis demonstrated that the survival rate in the patients with PRR11 protein positive expression was significantly lower than the patients with negative expression (P<0.05). Conclusion: PRR11 protein can be a possible prognostic indicator of pancreatic cancer.

Key words: Pancreatic carcinoma, PRR11 protein, Immunohistochemistry