differences in molecular pathologic characteristics of pancreatic adenocarcinoma between egyptian and moroccan patients

introduction : pancreatic cancer has not been well studied, especially in developing countries. materials and methods : we studied the variations in genetic mutations in pancreatic adenocarcinoma between moroccan and egyptian populations. the molecular pathology of 30 tumors from a large hospital in casablanca, morocco were examined and compared with the findings of 44 tumors from the gharbiah governate in egypt. k-ras mutations in codons12 and 13 in addition to p53 mutations in exons 5-8 were evaluated. results : overall, differences in the rates of k-ras mutations were not statistically significant (48.00 and 34.09%, respectively); however differences in rates of p53 mutations were statistically significant with p53 mutations more common in moroccan tumors than in egyptian tumors (46.67 and 16.28%, respectively). gtmutations of the k-ras gene were most commonly seen egyptian tumors, whereas gamutations were the most common type of mutations in moroccan tumors. logistic regression analysis showed that a p53 mutation in any exon as well as a p53 mutation in exon 5 predicted the country of residence and those mutations occurred more frequently in moroccan patients. conclusion : our study shows that differences exist within the arab population in the molecular pathology of both the k-ras and p53 genes. further studies are necessary to clarify the differences in molecular pathways of pancreatic cancer in the middle east and to investigate the role of environmental and/or genetic factors related to those pathways.