Preoperative level of serum transthyretin as a novel biomarker predicting survival in resected pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma with neoadjuvant therapy

Systemic inflammation and altered metabolism are essential hallmarks of cancer. We hypothesized that the rapid turnover protein transthyretin (TTR) (half-life: 2-3 days), compared with the conventional marker albumin (21 days), better reflects the inflammatory/metabolic dynamics of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) after neoadjuvant therapy (NAT) and is a useful prognostic marker.