Serum expression of angiopoietin-like protein 2 in pancreatic cancer patients with or without diabetes and its association with prognosis

Objective  To investigate the expression level of angiopoietin-like protein 2 (ANGPTL2) in pancreatic cancer patients with or without diabetes and the clinical value of ANGPTL2 as a prognostic marker in patients with pancreatic cancer. Methods  Serum samples were collected from 125 pancreatic cancer patients who were treated in The First Affiliated Hospital of Guangxi Medical University, Guangxi Medical University Cancer Hospital, and Wuming Hospital of Guangxi Medical University from January 2015 to January 2018, among whom 64 had pancreatic cancer alone and 61 had pancreatic cancer and diabetes, and 66 individuals who underwent physical examination were enrolled as control group. ELISA was used to measure the serum level of ANGPTL2, and the association of the expression level of ANGPTL2 with clinical indices, survival, and prognosis was analyzed. A one-way analysis of variance was used for comparison of normally distributed continuous data between three groups, and the Bonferroni test was used for comparison between two groups. The independent-samples Kruskal-Wallis H test was used for comparison of continuous data with skewed distribution between three groups and the one-way ANOVA analysis was used for comparison between two groups. The chi-square test was used for comparison of categorical data between groups. Spearman correlation analysis was also performed to investigate correlation. The Kaplan-Meier method was used to plot survival curves, and the log-rank test was used for comparison of survival rate. The Cox risk model was used to perform univariate and multivariate analyses to determine independent risk factors for the prognosis of pancreatic cancer. Results  The pancreatic cancer+diabetes group had a significantly higher serum concentration of ANGPTL2 than the pancreatic cancer group and the control group [7.79 (7.12-8.17) ng/ml vs 5.74 (5.08-6.40) ng/ml and 3.72 (3.25-4.16) ng/ml, χ2=126.367, P Conclusion  ANGPTL2 can be used as an effective clinical index to evaluate the prognosis of pancreatic cancer patients, especially those with diabetes.