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Updated: Feb 8, 2026

A Syngeneic Pancreatic Cancer Mouse Model to Study the Effects of Irreversible Electroporation
Published on: June 8, 2018
Circulating Tumor DNA as a Sensitive Marker in Patients Undergoing Irreversible Electroporation for Pancreatic Cancer
Mao Lin1,2, Mohammed Alnaggar3,4, Shuzhen Liang1,2
1Department of Biological Treatment Center, Fuda Cancer Hospital, Jinan University School, Guangzhou, China.
Background/Aims:
Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is often diagnosed at an advanced stage, resulting in extremely poor 5-year survival. Late diagnosis of PDAC is mainly due to lack of a reliable method of early detection. Carbohydrate antigen (CA) 19-9 is often used as a tumor biomarker in PDAC; however, the test lacks sensitivity and specificity. Therefore, new sensitive and minimally invasive diagnostic tools are required to detect pancreatic cancer.
Methods:
Here, we investigated circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) which contained KRAS-mutated as a potential diagnostic tool for PDAC patients who underwent irreversible electroporation (IRE). We used droplet digital polymerase chain reaction (ddPCR) to detect the expression of KRAS-mutated genes in plasma samples of 65 PDAC patients who underwent IRE.
Results:
In these 65 cases, ctDNA was detected in 20 (29.2%) samples. The median overall survival (OS) was 11.4 months with ctDNA+ patients and 14.3 months for ctDNA- patients. ctDNA+ patients had a obviously poorer prognosis associated to overall survival (P < 0.001).
Conclusion:
Our results suggested that the existence of ctDNA was a predictor of survival for PDAC patients. Therefore, ctDNA may be a new sensitive biomarker for monitoring treatment outcome in PDAC.
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