Particularly, since the prognostic significance of some of these biomarkers, including c-Met, p-AKT and p-ERK1/2 have been published using immunohistochemical analyses of resected tumor samples, which arguably is the “gold standard” technique, we reasoned that being able to recapitulate similar findings using FNA specimens would, to some extent, validate the accuracy of this novel technique and substantiate its utility in future clinical application, particularly for most PDAC patients with inoperable disease where large amount of tumor specimen is not available. This evidence concerns the gene MAPK3 and neoplasm.