Advances in pancreatic cancer epigenetics: From the mechanism to the clinic

Table 2 Epigenetic markers for early diagnosis in pancreatic cancer

Epigenetic marker	Description	Stage sensitivity (%)	Sensitivity (%)
BNC1 methylation	Methylation of BNC1 in blood differentiates early-stage pancreatic cancer from healthy individuals	Stage I: 62.5%, Stage II: 65%, Stage III/IV: 100%	100% in Stage I, 88.9% in Stage IIA, 100% in Stage IIB
ADAMTS1 methylation	Methylation of ADAMTS1 in blood has high sensitivity and specificity for early diagnosis of pancreatic cancer	Stage I/II: 87.2%, Stage I/II: 95.8%	87.2% sensitivity, 95.8% specificity
GATA4 methylation	GATA4 methylation is associated with early diagnosis and prognosis of pancreatic cancer	High sensitivity and specificity for early diagnosis	High specificity for early detection
SFRP1 methylation	SFRP1 methylation is predictive of malignancy risk in pancreatic cancer and detected in pancreatic juice/blood	High sensitivity in pancreatic juice, predictive of malignancy risk	Widely detected in blood samples
miR-181b	miR-181b expression levels correlate with pancreatic cancer stages	MiR-196a, MiR-210 combined with CA19-9 improves accuracy	Improved staging accuracy with miR-196a and miR-210 detection
miR-196a	miR-196a expression levels correlate with pancreatic cancer stages, combined detection with CA19-9 improves staging accuracy	MiR-196a, MiR-210 combined with CA19-9 improves accuracy	Improved staging accuracy with miR-196a and miR-210 detection
miR-210	miR-210 expression levels correlate with pancreatic cancer stages, combined detection with CA19-9 improves staging accuracy	HOTAIR correlates with early diagnosis, found in saliva and blood	Effective early detection in pancreatic cancer patients
HOTAIR (lncRNA)	Overexpression of HOTAIR correlates with early onset and malignancy of pancreatic tumors	miR-210 and miR-196a combined with CA19-9 improve accuracy	Effective for early detection and staging

lncRNA: Long noncoding RNA.