Prognostic significance of ATM and cyclin B1 in pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor

Ataxia telangiectasia mutated kinase (ATM) and cyclin B1 are involved in cell cycle control. The prognostic significance of both molecules has not yet been investigated in pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors. The aim of this study was to evaluate the clinical and prognostic significance of ATM and cyclin B1 in patients with pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors. A total of 107 pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor specimens that were surgically resected were immunohistochemically investigated using the tissue microarray technique. Clinicopathologic results and survival were evaluated retrospectively. High expression of ATM and cyclin B1 was related to well-differentiated endocrine tumors of the World Health Organization (WHO) classification, but not related to TNM stages. The high ATM expression group (ATM ≥ 4) had a significantly smaller tumor size, lower recurrence rate, more number of functioning tumor, and well differentiation of WHO classification. The high cyclin B1 expression group (cyclin B1 ≥5) was related to smaller tumor size, less vascular invasion, less recurrence rate, and less death rate. However, cyclin B1 was the only significant factor for survival following multivariate analysis (p = 0.008; OR, 0.54; 95 % CI, 0.35–0.85). The current results suggested that expression of ATM and cyclin B1 may be useful markers to identify patients with poor prognosis who may benefit from close follow-up and aggressive therapy in pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors.