Transcriptomic Profiling and Demographic Analysis of Appalachian Patients with Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma using the Purity Independent Subtyping of Tumors (PurIST) Classifier

Purpose

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is a deadly malignancy with poor prognosis. A transcriptomic-based algorithm called Purity Independent Subtyping of Tumors (PurIST) relies on expression profiling of a defined set of genes to stratify PDAC into classical and basal-like molecular subtypes and assigns a confidence level to the subtypes as either “strong,” “likely,” or “lean.” In this study, we apply PurIST to Appalachian and non-Appalachian patient cohorts and assess demographic variables between groups that may influence treatment outcomes.