ORIGINAL ARTICLE   

Minerva Medica 2022 December;113(6):959-66

DOI: 10.23736/S0026-4806.21.07669-2

Copyright © 2021 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English

Analysis of microsatellite instability in Korean patients with pancreatic cancer

Mohammad R. ALAM ¹, Yong H. KIM ², Alaa ALHAZMI ³, Shafiul HAQUE ⁴, Yoo N. KANG ⁵, Hye R. JUNG ⁶, Mi-Yeung SOHN ¹, Dae-Kwang KIM ^{1, 7} ✉

¹ School of Medicine, Department of Medical Genetics, Keimyung University, Daegu, South Korea; ² School of Medicine, Department of Surgery, Dongsan Medical Center, Keimyung University, Daegu, South Korea; ³ Department of Medical Laboratory Technology, Jazan University, Jazan, Saudi Arabia; ⁴ Unit of Research and Scientific Studies, College of Nursing and Allied Health Sciences, Jazan University, Jazan, Saudi Arabia; ⁵ School of Medicine, Department of Forensic Medicine, Kyungpook National University, Daegu, South Korea; ⁶ School of Medicine, Department of Pathology, Dongsan Medical Center, Keimyung University, Daegu, South Korea; ⁷ Hanvit Institute for Medical Genetics, Daegu, South Korea

BACKGROUND: Pancreatic cancer (PC) is a dangerous malignancy with a high mortality rate. Diagnosing PC at an early stage is difficult, and approximately 5% of the patients survive for 5 years. Microsatellite instability (MSI) plays an important role in colorectal cancer (CRC) for prognosis and immunotherapy. Evaluation of MSI status is important as it is recognized biomarker for the positive response of immune checkpoint blockade therapy in cancer. To our knowledge, there is no report yet on the prevalence of MSI in Korean PC patients. Studies have reported conflicting prevalence of MSI in PC.
METHODS: Therefore, to improve the likelihood of MSI identification in PC, we included 133 patients with PC; paired tumor and normal tissue DNA were isolated and MSI was analyzed using Promega panel and immunohistochemistry (IHC) was also performed.
RESULTS: Our results from the Promega panel indicated that one (0.7%) tumor was MSI-high (MSI-H), 13 (9.8%) were MSI-low (MSI-L), and 119 (89.5%) were microsatellite stable (MSS). IHC result also confirmed dMMR in only one sample.
CONCLUSIONS: The finding of low incidence of MSI-H observed by the Promega panel also matched IHC results, so this study suggested that in Korean PC patients, MSI prevalence is infrequent.

KEY WORDS: Promega; Pancreatic neoplasms; Microsatellite instability; Prognosis; Immunotherapy