Pancreatic cancer remains a lethal disease that responds poorly to multiple types of treatment. Therefore, the identification of distinct subgroups that exhibit unique therapeutic responses is an urgent requirement. In the present multicenter study (1,912 cases), the differences between the therapeutic responses and clinical characteristics of two subgroups of pancreatic cancer, carbohydrate antigen 19-9 (CA19-9)-normal (baseline serum level, ≤37 U/ml) and CA19-9-elevated (baseline serum level, >37 U/ml), were analyzed. CA19-9-normal expression was identified to be an independent prognostic factor for patients with stage I-II [hazard ratio (HR)=0.77; P=0.037] and stage III-IV (HR=0.68; P<0.001) pancreatic cancer. The 5-year survival rate of the stage III-IV CA19-9-normal subgroup was increased compared with the stage I-II CA19-9-elevated subgroup (15.4 vs. 13.8

作者：Guopei, Luo；Kaizhou, Jin；Meng, Guo；He, Cheng；Zuqiang, Liu；Zhiwen, Xiao；Yu, Lu；Jiang, Long；Liang, Liu；Jin, Xu；Chen, Liu；Yutang, Gao；Quanxing, Ni；Xianjun, Yu

来源：Oncology letters 2017 年 13卷 2期