The PDAC tissues were incubated with anti-RHAMM IgG (Abcam, Cambridge, MA, USA) at a 1:100 dilution for 2 h at room temperature. The sections were incubated for 10 min with biotinylated anti-rabbit antibody for RHAMM according to the manufacture's instruction of Histofine SAB-PO (R) kit (Nichirei Biosciences Inc, Tokyo, Japan). The positive control was archival tissue from a normal human testis. The scoring method, which combined intensity and the percentage of positivity, was previously described 9 (link). The slides were scored by two individual researchers (N.S. and X.C.) on a blinded basis. The extent and intensity measures for each score were combined to identify “weak” expression or “strong” expression.