Circulating anti-MUC1 IgG antibodies as a favorable prognostic factor for pancreatic cancer

MUCI is immunogenic in vivo and humoral and cellular immune responses against MUCI have been detected in cancer patients. Our study explored the association of circulating anti-MUCI antibodies with clinicopathological parameters or patients' survival of pancreatic cancer. Serum specimens from 36 patients with invasive ductal carcinoma of the pancreas were subjected to enzyme immunoassay for anti-MUCI IgG or IgM antibodies. Serum levels of anti-MUCI IgG antibodies were significantly correlated with survival time (p = 0.0004), whereas neither those of anti-MUCI IgM nor anti-Gala(1,3)Gal IgG antibodies, the latter known as natural antibodies cross-reactive with MUCI, showed a given tendency. Some patients' sera with the higher antibody titer showed the reactivity with MUCI-transfectants of cultured pancreatic cancer cells, but not with MUCI-negative parental cells. When the samples were tentatively divided into 2 groups by the serum level of anti-MUCI antibodies, the survival of patients was significantly longer in the group with optical density greater than or equal to0.3 than in that with optical density <0.3 (p = 0.008). Circulating anti-MUCI IgG antibody levels remained significant (HR, 0.03; 95% Cl, 0.0030.289; p = 0.0024) after multivariate analysis for pTNM stage, patient age and gender. These data suggest that circulating anti-MUCI-IgG antibody levels may be predictive for survival of pancreatic cancer patients. (C) 2002 Wiley-Liss, Inc.