386 HIGH NUMBERS OF PORTAL VENOUS CIRCULATING TUMOR CELLS ACQUIRED VIA EUS PROVIDE PROGNOSTIC ASSISTANCE FOR PROGRESSION FREE SURVIVAL IN PANCREATICOBILIARY CANCERS

Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are shed in the bloodstream of patients with cancer and may carry prognostic significance. However, the utility of CTCs as a tumor marker in pancreaticobiliary cancers has been limited due to poor sensitivity of enumeration from peripheral blood. We recently reported that sampling portal venous (PV) blood via EUS to count PV-CTCs is not only safe and feasible, but reveals significantly more CTCs when compared to paired peripheral blood (Catenacci et. al., Gastroenterology 2015 Dec;149(7):1794-1803)