Leukemia inhibitory factor is a novel biomarker to predict lymph node and distant metastasis in pancreatic cancer

Pancreatic cancer has a low survival rate, and most patients have lymph node metastasis and distant metastasis at the time of diagnosis. Despite efforts to improve overall survival (OS) and recurrence free survival (RFS), the prognosis of pancreatic cancer remains poor, underscoring the importance of identifying new biomarkers to predict metastasis in patients with pancreatic cancer. Leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF) is overexpressed in many types of cancer and is involved in the development of various malignancies including pancreatic cancer. However, the role of LIF as a biomarker to predict metastasis in pancreatic cancer remains unclear. In this study, univariate and multivariate Cox regression analyses identified LIF expression in pancreatic tumor tissues as an independent risk factor related to worse OS and RFS. LIF overexpression was related to poor clinicopathological features such as lymph node metastasis and Pathological stage (pTNM) stage. Serum LIF levels were higher in pancreatic cancer patients than in healthy controls. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve indicated that serum LIF is more effective than other biomarkers (CA199 and CEA) for predicting lymph node and distant metastasis.