Morphological Heterogeneity in Pancreatic Cancer Reflects Structural and Functional Divergence.

ABSTRACT: Inter- and intratumor heterogeneity is an important cause of treatment failure. In human pancreatic cancer (PC), heterogeneity has been investigated almost exclusively at the genomic and transcriptional level. Morphological heterogeneity, though prominent and potentially easily assessable in clinical practice, remains unexplored. This proof-of-concept study aims at demonstrating that morphological heterogeneity reflects structural and functional divergence. From the wide morphological spectrum of conventional PC, four common and distinctive patterns were investigated in 233 foci from 39 surgical specimens. Twenty-six features involved in key biological processes in PC were analyzed (immuno-)histochemically and morphometrically: cancer cell proliferation (Ki67) and migration (collagen fiber

SUBMITTER: Santha P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7924365 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature