Evidence map›Paper›PMID 31875000›Full record

Trial reportScientific reports2019

Collagen fragments quantified in serum as measures of desmoplasia associate with survival outcome in patients with advanced pancreatic cancer.

Nicholas Willumsen, Suhail M Ali, Kim Leitzel, Joseph J Drabick, Nelson Yee, Hyma V Polimera, Vinod Nagabhairu, Laura Krecko, Ayesha Ali, Ashok Maddukuri and 8 more

Open access · goldAbstract readClinical Trial, Phase IIIMulticenter StudyRandomized Controlled Trial
In one paragraph

Trial report in Scientific reports, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 46 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
46citing papers in PubMed, 1 pooled it
3.3field-weighted citation impact, top 6% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

46 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 57 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Pooled it
  2. Degradation fragments of Tau and type IV collagen as serum biomarkers in patients with recurrent glioblastoma treated with nivolumab and bevacizumab.Clinical & translational oncology : official publication of the Federation of Spanish Oncology Societies and of the National Cancer Institute of Mexico · 2025
    Trial
  3. Trial
  4. Understanding and targeting the tumour matrisome.Nature reviews. Clinical oncology · 2026
    Review
  5. Article
  6. Review
  7. Article
  8. Article
  9. Article
  10. The Duality of Collagens in Metastases of Solid Tumors.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025
    Review
  11. Review
  12. Review
  13. Article
  14. Review
  15. Article
  16. Article
  17. Review
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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

18 authors at 4 institutions in 4 countries.

Nicholas WillumsenBiomarkers & Research, Nordic Bioscience, Herlev, Denmark. nwi@nordicbio.com.
Suhail M AliDivision of Hematology/Oncology, Penn State Health Milton S Hershey Medical Center, Hershey, PA, USA.
Kim LeitzelDivision of Hematology/Oncology, Penn State Health Milton S Hershey Medical Center, Hershey, PA, USA.
Joseph J DrabickDivision of Hematology/Oncology, Penn State Health Milton S Hershey Medical Center, Hershey, PA, USA.
Nelson YeeDivision of Hematology/Oncology, Penn State Health Milton S Hershey Medical Center, Hershey, PA, USA.
Hyma V PolimeraDivision of Hematology/Oncology, Penn State Health Milton S Hershey Medical Center, Hershey, PA, USA.
Vinod NagabhairuPinnacle Health System, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Harrisburg, PA, USA.
Laura KreckoDivision of Hematology/Oncology, Penn State Health Milton S Hershey Medical Center, Hershey, PA, USA.
Ayesha AliDivision of Hematology/Oncology, Penn State Health Milton S Hershey Medical Center, Hershey, PA, USA.
Ashok MaddukuriDivision of Hematology/Oncology, Penn State Health Milton S Hershey Medical Center, Hershey, PA, USA.
Prashanth MokuDivision of Hematology/Oncology, Penn State Health Milton S Hershey Medical Center, Hershey, PA, USA.
Aamnah AliDivision of Hematology/Oncology, Penn State Health Milton S Hershey Medical Center, Hershey, PA, USA.
Joyson PouloseDivision of Hematology/Oncology, Penn State Health Milton S Hershey Medical Center, Hershey, PA, USA.
Harry MenonDivision of Hematology/Oncology, Penn State Health Milton S Hershey Medical Center, Hershey, PA, USA.
Neha PancholyDivision of Hematology/Oncology, Penn State Health Milton S Hershey Medical Center, Hershey, PA, USA.
Luis CostaOncology division, Hospital de Santa Maria, Lisboa, Portugal.
Morten A KarsdalBiomarkers & Research, Nordic Bioscience, Herlev, Denmark.
Allan LiptonDivision of Hematology/Oncology, Penn State Health Milton S Hershey Medical Center, Hershey, PA, USA.
Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center · USNordic Bioscience (Denmark) · DKTranslational Research in Oncology · FRUniversity of Pittsburgh Medical Center · US

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) patients have poor prognosis and poor response to treatment. This is largely due to PDAC being associated with a dense and active stroma and tumor fibrosis (desmoplasia). Desmoplasia is characterized by excessive degradation and formation of the extracellular matrix (ECM) generating collagen fragments that are released into circulation. We evaluated the association of specific collagen fragments measured in pre-treatment serum with outcome in patients with PDAC. Matrix metalloprotease (MMP)-degraded type I collagen (C1M), type III collagen (C3M), type IV collagen (C4M) and a pro-peptide of type III collagen (PRO-C3) were measured by ELISA in pre-treatment serum from a randomized phase 3 clinical trial of patients with stage III/IV PDAC treated with 5-fluorouracil based therapy (n = 176). The collagen fragments were evaluated for their correlation (r, Spearman) with serum CA19-9 and for their association with overall survival (OS) based on Cox-regression analyses. In this phase 3 PDAC trial, pre-treatment serum collagen fragment levels were above the reference range for 67%-98% of patients, with median values in PDAC approximately two-fold higher than reference levels. Collagen fragment levels did not correlate with CA19-9 (r = 0.049-0.141, p = ns). On a continuous basis, higher levels of all collagen fragments were associated with significantly shorter OS. When evaluating degradation (C3M) and formation (PRO-C3) of type III collagen further, higher PRO-C3 was associated with poor OS (>25

Indexed as

Carcinoma, Pancreatic DuctalPancreatic NeoplasmsCA-19-9 AntigenCollagenDisease-Free SurvivalDouble-Blind MethodFemaleHumansMaleMiddle AgedNeoplasm ProteinsNeoplasm StagingSurvival RateCA-19-9 AntigenCollagenNeoplasm Proteins

Identifiers

PMID31875000
PMCPMC6930304
OpenAlexW2997302097

What OpenQuestion holds

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LicenceCC BY
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Registered trials

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.