Background: Carcinoma of the Pancreas is one of the leading causes of mortality due to malignancy. Most of the cases present with advanced stage because of subtle clinical manifestation. With a curative resection, the five year survival rate reaches to 25­30%. Aims and Objective: Aim of this study is to correlate Cathepsin D expression with pancreatic adenocarcinoma grade, perineural and lymphovascular invasion. Materials and method: Total of 50 Whipple pancreato duodenectomy specimens were selected for this study. Sections from pancreatic carcinoma were graded according to their degree of differentiation. Perineural invasion and lymphovascular invasion was noted. Immunohistochemical study using Cathepsin D antibody was performed in 50 cases and degree of antibody expression was scored in each case. Results: Tumor grading based on Histopathological examination and Cathepsin D expression was done. 12% cases were well differentiated, 42% were moderately differentiated and 46% cases were poorly differentiated carcinoma. Cathepsin D expression was scored. Score 1 was given to 8% cases, 2 to 44% cases and 3 to 48% cases. Lymph node metastases were present in 70% of cases and absent in 30% of cases. Perineural invasion was present in 56% of cases and absent in 44% of cases. Conclusion: Our study shows that increased expression of Cathepsin D was associated with higher grade of pancreatic adenocarcinoma and poor survival rate.

Keywords: Pancreatic Carcinoma; Cathepsin D; Perineural Invasion.