Increased PRIM2 expression associated with poor-prognosis in patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma.

OBJECTIVES To explore the association between PRIM2 expression and prognosis of patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) from multi clinic centers. METHODS Samples from PDAC patients were collected and processed to tissue microarray (TMA). PRIM2 expression was detected by immunohistochemistry (IHC) of in 127 enrolled PDAC patients, which underwent surgical resection from January 2012 to December 2018, with complete follow-up, were enrolled and grouped by PRIM2 stain level into two groups. The expression differences, the association to clinicopathologic features and the survival were evaluated by the groups. Data of RNA/protein expression and clinical features from public databases were used for validation. RESULTS PRIM2 was highly expressed in PDAC patients and associated with poor-prognosis in patients with PDAC. Association was found between increased PRIM2 levels and pathology grade (p = 0.050). Moreover, in multivariate analysis of survival, the highly expression of PRIM2 was identified as an independent risk factor for poor survival (HR1.78, p = 0.031). Analysis on public databases validated above results. CONCLUSIONS High expression of PRIM2 associated with poor prognosis in PDAC patients, PRIM2 could be used as an independent risk indicator.