A pilot study of evaluation of a phosphorylation signature from pancreatic cancer tumors.

e14584 Background: The development of targeted therapy in pancreatic cancer has been hindered by minimal material available for molecular analysis from diagnostic endoscopic ultrasound-guided fine-needle aspirations (EUS/FNA). Revealing the phosphorylation status of key pathway mediators would allow optimal selection of patients for kinase inhibitor clinical trials. We launched a pilot study to evaluate the feasibility of detecting phosphorylation signatures from FNA samples using an ultrasensitive multiplexed protein microarray platform (CEER, Prometheus). Methods: Patients who underwent routine diagnostic EUS/FNA for a suspicious lesion in the pancreas underwent two additional EUS passes. Mediators of multiple signaling pathways including HER1/EGFR, HER2, HER3, IGF-IR, and their downstream mediators, AKT, MEK, ERK, et al were evaluated by CEER. Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) and resected tumor specimens were collected as available from patients for comparison. Results: From January-September, 2011, 57 p...