Use of human equilibrative nucleoside transporter 1 to predict survival after adjuvant gemcitabine chemotherapy in resected pancreatic adenocarcinoma.

224 Background: Gemcitabine is a promising adjuvant treatment for patients with resected pancreatic adenocarcinoma. Human equilibrative nucleoside transporter 1 (hENT1) is the major transporter responsible for 2′, 2′-difluoro-2deoxycytidine (gemcitabine) uptake into cells. The aim of this study was to determine the outcomes according to the expression of hENT1 in tumor cells in patients treated with adjuvant gemcitabine chemotherapy after curative resection. Methods: We studied 27 pancreatic adenocarcinoma patients treated with gemcitabine adjuvant chemotherapy after curative resection and 8 gemcitabine naive patients between 2006 and 2008. The hENT expressions were assessed using immunohistochemistry. The staining intensity of hENT1 protein was assigned a score from 0 to 3 based on staining with 0: no staining, 1: weakly positive, 2: moderately positive, 3: strongly positive. The percentage of positive tumor cells was scored as follows, 0: no positive tumor cell; 1: < 50% positive cells, 2: 51-80% positi...