Browsing by Subject "Pancreatic cyst"
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Item Biomarker Risk Score Algorithm and Preoperative Stratification of Patients with Pancreatic Cystic Lesions(Wolters Kluwer, 2021) Yip-Schneider, Michele T.; Wu, Huangbing; Allison, Hannah R.; Easler, Jeffrey J.; Sherman, Stuart; Al-Haddad, Mohammad A.; Dewitt, John M.; Schmidt, C. Max; Surgery, School of MedicineBackground: Pancreatic cysts are incidentally detected in up to 13% of patients undergoing radiographic imaging. Of the most frequently encountered types, mucin-producing (mucinous) pancreatic cystic lesions may develop into pancreatic cancer, while nonmucinous ones have little or no malignant potential. Accurate preoperative diagnosis is critical for optimal management, but has been difficult to achieve, resulting in unnecessary major surgery. Here, we aim to develop an algorithm based on biomarker risk scores to improve risk stratification. Study design: Patients undergoing surgery and/or surveillance for a pancreatic cystic lesion, with diagnostic imaging and banked pancreatic cyst fluid, were enrolled in the study after informed consent (n = 163 surgical, 67 surveillance). Cyst fluid biomarkers with high specificity for distinguishing nonmucinous from mucinous pancreatic cysts (vascular endothelial growth factor [VEGF], glucose, carcinoembryonic antigen [CEA], amylase, cytology, and DNA mutation) were selected. Biomarker risk scores were used to design an algorithm to predict preoperative diagnosis. Performance was tested using surgical (retrospective) and surveillance (prospective) cohorts. Results: In the surgical cohort, the biomarker algorithm outperformed the preoperative clinical diagnosis in correctly predicting the final pathologic diagnosis (91% vs 73%; p < 0.000001). Specifically, nonmucinous serous cystic neoplasms (SCN) and mucinous cystic neoplasms (MCN) were correctly classified more frequently by the algorithm than clinical diagnosis (96% vs 30%; p < 0.000008 and 92% vs 69%; p = 0.04, respectively). In the surveillance cohort, the algorithm predicted a preoperative diagnosis with high confidence based on a high biomarker score and/or consistency with imaging from ≥1 follow-up visits. Conclusions: A biomarker risk score-based algorithm was able to correctly classify pancreatic cysts preoperatively. Importantly, this tool may improve initial and dynamic risk stratification, reducing overdiagnosis and underdiagnosis.Item Circulating Leptin and Branched Chain Amino Acids – Correlation with Intraductal Papillary Mucinous Neoplasm Dysplastic Grade(Springer Verlag, 2019-05) Yip-Schneider, Michele T.; Simpson, Rachel; Carr, Rosalie A.; Wu, Huangbing; Fan, Hao; Liu, Ziyue; Korc, Murray; Zhang, Jianjun; Schmidt, C. Max; Surgery, School of MedicineBackground: The most common type of mucinous pancreatic cyst that may progress to pancreatic cancer is intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasm (IPMN). Low-risk IPMN with low-/moderate-grade dysplasia may be safely watched, whereas high-risk IPMN with high-grade dysplasia or invasive components should undergo resection. However, there is currently no reliable means of making this distinction. We hypothesize that blood concentrations of insulin resistance biomarkers may aid in the differentiation of low- and high-risk IPMN. Methods: Plasma/serum was collected from consented patients undergoing pancreatic resection. IPMN diagnosis and dysplastic grade were confirmed by surgical pathology. The study included 235 IPMN (166 low/moderate grade, 39 high grade, 30 invasive). Circulating levels of leptin, branched chain amino acids (BCAA), and retinol-binding protein-4 (RBP-4) were measured by enzyme-linked immunoassay and correlated with surgical pathology. Results: Circulating leptin levels (mean ± SE) were significantly higher in patients with low/moderate IPMN than in high-grade/invasive IPMN (15,803 ± 1686 vs. 10,275 ± 1228 pg/ml; p = 0.0086). Leptin levels were positively correlated with BMI (r = 0.65, p < 0.0001) and were higher in females (p < 0.0001). Stratified analysis showed that mean leptin levels were significantly different between low/moderate and high/invasive IPMNs only in females (24,383 ± 2748 vs. 16,295 ± 2040 pg/ml; p = 0.020). Conversely, circulating BCAA levels were lower in low/moderate IPMN than in high-grade/invasive IPMN (0.38 ± 0.007 vs. 0.42 ± 0.01 mM; p = 0.011). No significant differences in RBP-4 levels were observed. Conclusions: Circulating leptin in females and BCAA correlates with IPMN dysplastic grade and, if combined with clinical characteristics, have the potential to improve clinical decision-making.Item Endoscopic ultrasound characteristics of pancreatic lymphoepithelial cysts: A case series from a large referral center.(Wolters Kluwer, 2016) Dalal, Kunal S.; DeWitt, John M.; Sherman, Stuart; Cramer, Harvey M.; Tirkes, Temel; Al-Haddad, Mohammad A.; Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, IU School of MedicineBACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Lymphoepithelial cysts (LECs) of the pancreas are benign lesions that can mimic cystic neoplasms on imaging. Endoscopic ultrasound (EUS) features have not been well described. We aimed to describe the clinical and EUS characteristics of LECs and the present outcomes of management at a high-volume referral center. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We identified patients who underwent EUS and were found to have LECs based on fine-needle aspiration (FNA) cytology or surgical pathology from existing databases. EUS features, imaging characteristics, and pathology results were described. RESULTS: Sixteen patients were found to have 17 LECs. The mean size was 33 mm ± 15 mm. Locations within the pancreas included 10 lesions in the tail, 3 in the body, 1 in the uncinate process; the remaining 3 were exophytic. Six lesions were anechoic, 6 were hypoechoic, and 5 had mixed echogenicity. Nine lesions had mixed solid/cystic components, 7 were purely cystic, and 1 was solid. Cyst fluid was thick or viscous in six cases and thin in three. Eleven patients had diagnostic cytopathology. Six patients ultimately underwent surgery due to symptoms, nondiagnostic FNA, or other clinical concerns for malignancy. CONCLUSIONS: Pancreatic LECs have variable morphology and echogenicity on EUS, but the appearance of a cyst with variable solid and cystic components combined with the appearance of thick, turbid, and viscous aspirate should raise suspicion for an LEC. The majority of patients with LECs at our center avoided surgery for LECs on the basis of diagnostic EUS-FNA.Item Global protease activity profiling provides differential diagnosis of pancreatic cysts(American Association for Cancer Research, 2017-08-15) Ivry, Sam L.; Sharib, Jeremy M.; Dominguez, Dana A.; Roy, Nilotpal; Hatcher, Stacy E.; Yip-Schneider, Michele T.; Schmidt, C. Max; Brand, Randall E.; Park, Walter G.; Hebrok, Matthias; Kim, Grace E.; O'Donoghue, Anthony J.; Kirkwood, Kimberly S.; Craik, Charles S.; Surgery, School of MedicinePurpose: Pancreatic cysts are estimated to be present in 2%-3% of the adult population. Unfortunately, current diagnostics do not accurately distinguish benign cysts from those that can progress into invasive cancer. Misregulated pericellular proteolysis is a hallmark of malignancy, and therefore, we used a global approach to discover protease activities that differentiate benign nonmucinous cysts from premalignant mucinous cysts.Experimental Design: We employed an unbiased and global protease profiling approach to discover protease activities in 23 cyst fluid samples. The distinguishing activities of select proteases was confirmed in 110 samples using specific fluorogenic substrates and required less than 5 μL of cyst fluid.Results: We determined that the activities of the aspartyl proteases gastricsin and cathepsin E are highly increased in fluid from mucinous cysts. IHC analysis revealed that gastricsin expression was associated with regions of low-grade dysplasia, whereas cathepsin E expression was independent of dysplasia grade. Gastricsin activity differentiated mucinous from nonmucinous cysts with a specificity of 100% and a sensitivity of 93%, whereas cathepsin E activity was 92% specific and 70% sensitive. Gastricsin significantly outperformed the most widely used molecular biomarker, carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), which demonstrated 94% specificity and 65% sensitivity. Combined analysis of gastricsin and CEA resulted in a near perfect classifier with 100% specificity and 98% sensitivity.Conclusions: Quantitation of gastricsin and cathepsin E activities accurately distinguished mucinous from nonmucinous pancreatic cysts and has the potential to replace current diagnostics for analysis of these highly prevalent lesions. Clin Cancer Res; 23(16); 4865-74. ©2017 AACR.Item A multimodality test to guide the management of patients with a pancreatic cyst(American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2019-07-17) Springer, Simeon; Masica, David L.; Dal Molin, Marco; Douville, Christopher; Thoburn, Christopher J.; Afsari, Bahman; Li, Lu; Cohen, Joshua D.; Thompson, Elizabeth; Allen, Peter J.; Klimstra, David S.; Schattner, Mark A.; Schmidt, C. Max; Yip-Schneider, Michele; Simpson, Rachel E.; Castillo, Carlos Fernandez-Del; Mino-Kenudson, Mari; Brugge, William; Brand, Randall E.; Singhi, Aatur D.; Scarpa, Aldo; Lawlor, Rita; Salvia, Roberto; Zamboni, Giuseppe; Hong, Seung-Mo; Hwang, Dae Wook; Jang, Jin-Young; Kwon, Wooil; Swan, Niall; Geoghegan, Justin; Falconi, Massimo; Crippa, Stefano; Doglioni, Claudio; Paulino, Jorge; Schulick, Richard D.; Edil, Barish H.; Park, Walter; Yachida, Shinichi; Hijioka, Susumu; van Hooft, Jeanin; He, Jin; Weiss, Matthew J.; Burkhart, Richard; Makary, Martin; Canto, Marcia I.; Goggins, Michael G.; Ptak, Janine; Dobbyn, Lisa; Schaefer, Joy; Sillman, Natalie; Popoli, Maria; Klein, Alison P.; Tomasetti, Cristian; Karchin, Rachel; Papadopoulos, Nickolas; Kinzler, Kenneth W.; Vogelstein, Bert; Wolfgang, Christopher L.; Hruban, Ralph H.; Lennon, Anne Marie; Surgery, School of MedicinePancreatic cysts are common and often pose a management dilemma, because some cysts are precancerous, whereas others have little risk of developing into invasive cancers. We used supervised machine learning techniques to develop a comprehensive test, CompCyst, to guide the management of patients with pancreatic cysts. The test is based on selected clinical features, imaging characteristics, and cyst fluid genetic and biochemical markers. Using data from 436 patients with pancreatic cysts, we trained CompCyst to classify patients as those who required surgery, those who should be routinely monitored, and those who did not require further surveillance. We then tested CompCyst in an independent cohort of 426 patients, with histopathology used as the gold standard. We found that clinical management informed by the CompCyst test was more accurate than the management dictated by conventional clinical and imaging criteria alone. Application of the CompCyst test would have spared surgery in more than half of the patients who underwent unnecessary resection of their cysts. CompCyst therefore has the potential to reduce the patient morbidity and economic costs associated with current standard-of-care pancreatic cyst management practices.Item Novel Expression of Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor Isoforms in the Pancreas and Pancreatic Cystic Lesions(Elsevier, 2021) Yip-Schneider, Michele T.; Wu, Huangbing; Schmidt, C. Max; Surgery, School of MedicineVascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF)-A is known to play key biological roles in angiogenesis and vascular permeability. We previously identified VEGF-A as an accurate biomarker of benign pancreatic cystic lesions known as serous cystic neoplasms (SCN). In the present study, we seek to further characterize the expression of VEGF-A and its splice isoforms in different pancreatic cysts including SCN. Patients undergoing surgery were consented for the collection of pancreatic cystic lesion tissue (SCN, pseudocysts, mucinous cysts) and normal adjacent pancreas as well as pancreatic cyst fluid. Following RNA isolation from the tissues, relative VEGF-A gene expression was quantitatively analyzed using real-time PCR (qPCR), and VEGF-A isoform expression was evaluated by reverse transcriptase (RT)-PCR. Relative VEGF-A gene expression was significantly increased in SCN, demonstrating transcriptional upregulation in SCN compared to other pancreatic cyst tissues (P < 0.0001). VEGF-189, -165, -145, and -121 splice variants were detected in both normal adjacent pancreas and pancreatic cystic lesions; the novel VEGF-111 isoform was variably expressed in normal and cyst tissues. Finally, VEGF isoform levels in pancreatic cyst fluid were measured by isoform-specific ELISAs. VEGF-165, -145, and -121 proteins were present in pancreatic cyst fluids; VEGF-165 levels were significantly higher in SCN cyst fluid. Thus, multiple VEGF isoforms were expressed in normal pancreas and pancreatic cysts. Of particular interest are VEGF-145 and -111, which have not previously been described in human pancreas where they may exhibit unique biological activities in health and/or disease.Item Serial EUS-Guided FNA for the Surveillance of Pancreatic Cysts: A Study of Long-Term Performance of Tumor Markers(Springer, 2022) Rahal, Mahmoud A.; DeWitt, John M.; Patel, Harsh; Schmidt, C. Max; Ceppa, Eugene P.; Simpson, Rachel E.; Sherman, Stuart; Al-Haddad, Mohammad; Medicine, School of MedicineBackground and aim: The natural history of KRAS mutations in mucinous pancreatic cysts (MPCs) over time remains to be fully understood. The aim of this study was to examine the performance of DNA markers and assess changes of KRAS mutations over time. Methods: Patients who underwent EUS-FNA of pancreatic cysts with at least two separate molecular analysis results were included in the study. We assessed the baseline patient and cyst characteristics, and DNA fluid analysis. The presence of either a KRAS mutation, or a CEA > 192 ng/ml was used as the diagnostic standard for mucinous cysts when surgical pathology was not available. Results: A total of 933 pancreatic cyst fluid samples were collected, including 117 with ≥ 2 FNAs. Examinations were performed over a median of 30 months (range 1-115 months). Forty-three (36%) had a mutant KRAS on the index analysis out of which 26 had a change in their KRAS status to the wild-type. Eighty-one (64%) had a wild-type KRAS on the index analysis out of which 18 had change in their KRAS status to mutant type. There was no significant difference in the index cyst characteristics, presence of symptoms, or main duct involvement based on KRAS status change. Increasing age was associated with a changing KRAS mutation status (p = 0.023). Conclusion: KRAS mutations gain and loss in pancreatic cyst fluid appears to occur frequently during long-term surveillance of MPCs. Age appears to be the only predictor for KRAS change over time.