Low hENT1 expression indicates poor prognosis in gemcitabine-treated pancreatic cancer patients

Background: Pancreatic cancer (PC) is still a lethal disease and has a poor prognosis, gemcitabine-based chemotherapy is now the standard regimen in the treatment of pancreatic cancer. Gemcitabine resistance is an important obstacle for effective treatment of patients and improvement in patients’ overall survival (OS) and disease free survival (DFS). Results: Current research shows that human equilibrative nucleoside transporter 1 (hENT1) is related to gemcitabine chemoresistance for it mediates drug entry into cancer cells, and has an aberrant expression level in tumor tissues. But now discrepancies still exist between different research groups and studies about the expression level and prognostic value of hENT1 in PC patients, and the exactly underlying mechanism through which hENT1 transfer GEM into tumor cells remains unclear. Conclusion: hENT1 was low expressed in tumor tissues and this decreased expression level indicated a worse outcome (including shortened OS and DFS) in patients who received gemcitabine treatment postoperatively.