This was excluded

from statistical analysis because of variations in the duration and type of chemotherapy. Immunostaining for metastin and GPR54 Pancreatic cancer tissues showed heterogenous immunoreactivity for metastin and GPR54 (Figure 1). Acinar cells and islet cells did not exhibit any immunoreactivity, while metastin and GPR54 were both weak or mildly positive in the cytoplasm of normal pancreatic SHP099 chemical structure ductal cells. The mean intensity score for metastin was 72.1 ± 54.9 (n = 53) and that for GPR54 was 99.9 ± 55.1 (n = 53) (Figure 2). Figure 2 Expression of metastin and GPR54 in pancreatic cancer tissues. Immunoreactivity for metastin and GPR54 in resected pancreatic cancer tissues (n = 53) shown as the intensity score of each patient. The mean metastin intensity score was 72.1 ± 54.9 and that for GPR54 was 99.9 ± 55.1. The horizontal bar indicates the mean ± SD. Positive metastin staining was detected in 13 EPZ5676 purchase tumors (24.5%), while GPR54 was positive in 30 tumors (56.6%). Immunoreactivity for metastin and GPR54 showed a strong positive correlation (r = 0.62, p < 0.001; Fig. 3). Figure 3 Correlation between metastin and GPR54 expression in pancreatic cancer tissues. Scatter plot showing the correlation between immunoreactivity

for metastin and GPR54. A strong correlation was found (r = 0.62, p < 0.001). Demographic and clinicopathological characteristics showed no significant differences between patients whose tumors were positive or negative for metastin (Table 1), BI 2536 and the outcome was similar for GPR54 (Table 2). However, next tumors that were negative for both metastin and GPR54 showed

a significantly larger size than tumors positive for metastin and/or GPR54 (median of 2.5 cm and range of 0.8–5.0 cm versus median of 3.0 cm and range of 1.5–6.5 cm, p = 0.047). Table 1 Comparison of the patients with pancreatic cancer who had positive immunostaining for metastin and those negative. Characteristics Positive for metastin Negative for metastin P value   (n = 13) (n = 40)   Age 68.8 ± 7.2 (71, 56–78) 64.5 ± 10.5 (65.5, 32–86) 0.19 Gender          Male 6 19 0.93    Female 7 21   Location of tumor          Pancreas head 8 30 0.35    Pancreas body-tail 5 10   Size of tumor, cm 2.5 ± 0.9 (2.5, 1.2–4.5) 3.0 ± 1.2 (2.8, 0.8–6.5) 0.34 Histopathological grading          G1 5 9 0.26    G2-4 8 31   pT          pT1, pT2 2 6 0.97    pT3 11 34   pN          pN0 6 15 0.58    pN1 7 25   Lymphatic invasion          Positive 7 24 0.70    Negative 6 16   Venous invasion          Positive 7 23 0.82    Negative 6 17   Perineural invasion          Positive 6 22 0.58    Negative 7 18   pStage          I, II 13 36 0.24    IV 0 4   Residual tumor          R0 11 28 0.30    R1 2 12   Median and range are shown in parentheses.