Clinical significance of MUC1, MUC2 and CK17 expression patterns for diagnosis of pancreatobiliary arcinoma

Pancreatic cancer is characterized by aggressive growth and resistance to treatment. Identification of unique biomarkers for diagnosis and prognosis is important for treatment of this disease. We investigated the expression patterns of mucin 1 (MUC1), mucin 2 (MUC2) and cytokeratin 17 (CK17) in both normal tissues and metastatic adenocarcinomas using immunohistochemistry (IHC). We have shown that MUC1 (pan-epithelial membrane mucin), MUC2 (intestinal-type secretory mucin) and CK17 can be used as a panel of markers to distinguish collectively pancreatobiliary carcinoma from other primary site carcinomas. Tumors originating in the pancreatobiliary system showed an expression pattern of MUC1 (+), MUC2 (−) and CK17 (+). By contrast, tumors arising from the colorectal region were MUC1 (−), MUC2 (+) and CK17 (−), while tumors originating from non-pancreatobiliary system tissue expressed a MUC1 (+), MUC2 (−) and CK17 (−) profile. More importantly, the MUC1 (+), MUC2 (−) and CK17 (+) result showed greater sensiti...