The point mutations of the K-ras gene occur in as high as 70-90% of the cases with adenocarcinoma of the pancreas and apparently represent one of the key and early events in the carcinogenesis.
We selected 29 Italian PC patients from a case-control study of PC according to their personal and family history of both PC and breast/ovarian cancer (BC/OC) and tested them for presence of germline mutations in BRCA1, BRCA2 and PALB2.
A family history of pancreatic adenocarcinoma is not common in patients with this disease, but recent research has shown that pancreatic adenocarcinoma can be a feature of cancer susceptibility syndromes associated with germline mutations in p16, BRCA1, BRCA2, and APC.
Impact of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) kinase mutations, EGFR gene amplifications, and KRAS mutations on survival of pancreatic adenocarcinoma.
Switch in KRAS mutational status during an unusual course of disease in a patient with advanced pancreatic adenocarcinoma: implications for translational research.
Seven germline BRCA1 mutation carriers with pancreatic adenocarcinoma and nine patients with sporadic pancreatic cancer were identified from clinic- and population-based registries.
The findings support the feasibility of K-ras-2 topographic genotyping to identify potentially indolent disease and suggest a potentially useful role in the preoperative evaluation of pancreatic adenocarcinoma.
Even though the incidence of other cancers is higher in CMM families, pancreatic adenocarcinoma is the only other well demonstrated cancer associated with CDKN2A mutations in some CMM pedigrees.