Soluble MICA is elevated in pancreatic cancer: Results from a population based case-control study

Pancreatic cancer is diagnosed at a late stage and has one of the highest cancer mortality rates in the United States, creating an urgent need for novel early detection tools. A candidate biomarker for use in early detection is the soluble MHC class I-related chain A (s-MICA) ligand, which pancreatic tumors shed to escape immune detection. The objective of this study was to define the association between s-MICA levels and pancreatic cancer, in a population-based case-control study. S-MICA was measured in 143 pancreatic cancer cases and 459 controls. Unconditional logistic regression was used to calculate odds ratio (OR) for pancreatic cancer and 95% confidence intervals (CI). There was a positive association between increasing s-MICA levels and pancreatic cancer: compared to the lowest tertile, the ORs for pancreatic cancer were 1.25 (95%CI: 0.75-2.07) and 2.10 (95%CI: 1.29-3.42) in the second and highest tertiles, respectively (P-trend=0.02). Our study supports previous work demonstrating a positive association between plasma s-MICA levels and pancreatic cancer.