Abstract The aim of this study was to identify the expression of prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) and analyze the correlation between PSMA with clinical characteristics in patients with pancreatic cancer. The expression of PSMA protein and mRNA was detected by immunohistochemistry and real-time quantitative poly- merase chain reaction in pancreatic cancer tissues, pancre- atic intraepithelial neoplasia or normal pancreatic tissues, respectively. And clinical characteristics and prognosis of patients were investigated. PSMA was expressed in pan- creatic cancer cells, both in protein and mRNA levels. Moreover, the PSMA levels were associated with the prognosis of patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarci- noma. The overall survival time of pancreatic cancer patients with high expression of PSMA was significantly shorter than that of the low ones. Moreover, the PSMA levels were correlated with clinicopathological features including the histological grade and pathological tumor- node-metastasis stage. PSMA is involved in the carcino- genesis of pancreatic cancer, and it might serve as a potential therapeutic target for pancreatic cancer.