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Updated: Aug 10, 2026
Immunohistochemical Staining of B7-H1 PD-L1 on Paraffin-embedded Slides of Pancreatic Adenocarcinoma Tissue
Published on: January 3, 2013
β-catenin plus PROX1 immunostaining stratifies disease progression and patient survival in neoadjuvant-treated
Annika Eurola1, Ari Ristimäki2,3, Harri Mustonen1
1Department of Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, University of Helsinki and Helsinki University Hospital, Helsinki, Finland.
Background:
Wnt/β-catenin signaling is a highly conserved signaling pathway that regulates the transcription factor PROX1. The role of β-catenin and PROX1 in pancreatic cancer is ambiguous, as some studies have associated their expression with tumor regression and some with tumor progression.
Objective:
We have investigated their expression in surgically treated pancreatic cancer patients receiving neoadjuvant therapy (NAT), and patients treated upfront with surgery (US). We furthermore compared the expression of β-catenin and PROX1 between patients who had a good or poor response to NAT.
Methods:
We evaluated β-catenin and PROX1 expression through immunohistochemistry in 88 neoadjuvant and 144 upfront surgery patients by scoring the intensity of the immunopositivity as 0-3, corresponding to negative, weak, moderate, or strong. We developed a six-tier grading scheme for the neoadjuvant responses by analyzing the remaining tumor cells in surgical specimen histological sections.
Results:
Strong β-catenin immunopositivity associated with improved survival in the patients with good NAT-response (≤10% residual tumor cells) (Hazard ratio [HR] 0.26 95%, confidence interval [CI] 0.07-0.88 p = 0.030). Additionally, the combined moderate β-catenin and PROX1 expression associated with improved survival (HR 0.20 95% CI 0.05-0-76 p = 0.018) among the good responders. Among the patients with a poor NAT-response (> 10% residual tumor cells), both strong β-catenin immunopositivity and strong combined β-catenin and PROX1 associated with shorter survival (HR 2.03 95% CI 1.16-3.55 p = 0.013, and HR 3.1 95% CI 1.08-8.94 p = 0.03, respectively). PROX1 alone was not associated with survival.
Conclusions:
Strong β-catenin immunopositivity and combined strong or moderate β-catenin and PROX1 immunopositivity associated with improved survival among the good NAT-responders and worse survival among the poor NAT-responders.
