Among patients with mutant KRAS2 positive cancers, all but one (94%) had mutant KRAS2 DNA concentrations of more than 0.5% in their pancreatic juice samples, whereas only 1 of 9(11%) pancreatic juice samples from patients with chronic pancreatitis had more than 0.5% mutant KRAS2 DNA, corresponding to a sensitivity of 94% and a specificity of 89%.
At present, K-ras-2 mutation is not useful for differentiating pancreatic cancer from chronic pancreatitis or the identification of patients with chronic pancreatitis at risk for malignant transformation.