Expression Of Glut-1 And HK-2 In Pancreatic Cancer And Their Association With Prognosis And ¹⁸F-FDG Accumulaion

Background and AimAs two important immune molecules in glycolysis, Glut-1 and HK-2 have increased expressions in many malignant tumors and become the focus of present study. There are increasing researches on the relationship between expression of Glut-1,HK-2 and progonosis and 18F-FDG metabolism in tumors. The purposes of this paper are:1) studying the relationship between the expression of Glut-1 and HK-2 with clinicopathological characteristics and prognosis of pancreatic cancer, so as to explore new strategies in clinical diagnosis and treatment.2) studying the relationship between FDG metabolism and expression of Glut-1 and HK-2 in order to investigate the mechanism of FDG metabolism in pancreatic cancer.MethodsFifty patients with histologically proven pancreatic cancer were included in this preliminary study, all of whom received FDG PET/CT performance before surgery. Immunohistochemical staining of tumor sections and normal sections adjacent to tumor tissues was performed for Glut-1 and HK-2. By combining proportions and intensity of immunochemical staining, we obtained the modified immunohistologic scores for Glut-1 and HK-2 respectively. The relationship between expression of Glut-1, HK-2 and series of parameters were analyzed, i.e. clinialpathological characteristics, prognosis of pancreatic cancer patients and SUV of PET-CT.ResultsCompared with normal tissue, Glut-1 and HK-2 expression in pancreatic cancer tissues was significantly increased (p<0.001). There was no correlation between expression of Glut-1, HK-2 and tumor size, tumor location, tumor differentiation, lymph node metastasis, vascular invasion, the nerve infiltration, local infiltration, tumor histological type or tumor staging in pancreatic cancer(p>0.05). During the follow-up period, the survival curves of low Glut-1 group and high Glut-1 group was statistically different(p=0.049). Multivariate analysis (Cox regression) revealed that Glut-1 was not associated with mortality after adjusted for age, gender, tumor size, vascular invasion, local infiltration, lymph node metastasis and tumor staging(p>0.05). No statistical difference was found in the survival curves of negetive HK-2 group and positive HK-2 group (p=0.545). There was no correlation between 18F-FDG uptake in patients with pancreatic cancer and the expression of Glut-1 and HK-2(p>0.05).ConclusionsGlut-1 and HK-2 expression in pancreatic cancer tissues was significantly increased. There was no correlation between expression of Glut-1, HK-2 and clinicopathological characteristics, prognosis of pancreatic cancer. F-FDG uptake in patients with pancreatic cancer has no correlation both with Glut-1 and HK-2 expression.