OBJECTIVE

To explore the clinical value of human fecal Syndecan-2 (SDC2) gene methylation in colorectal cancer screening.

METHODS

There were 30 patients with colorectal cancer receiving treatment in Zhangjiakou First Hospital from January 2019 to December 2019 collected as the tumor group. There were 30 healthy people determined by a physical examination in 2019 collected as the normal group. The methylation level of fecal SDC2 gene and the level of serum tumor markers including carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) and Carbohydrate antigen 19-9 (CA19-9) were analyzed. The diagnostic effects of fecal SDC2 methylation and serum tumor markers on colorectal cancer were compared. The area under curve (AUC) of different methods for colorectal cancer diagnosis were evaluated based on the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve.

RESULTS

There was no distinction between the tumor group and the normal group in clinical basic data, including gender, age, and body mass index (P > 0.05), revealing the comparability between the two groups. The level of fecal SDC2 methylation in the tumor group was lower than that in the normal group (P < 0.05). CEA and CA19-9 in the tumor group were higher than those in the normal group (P < 0.05). Among the 30 colorectal cancers, 28 (93.33%) were positive for SDC2 gene methylation, 18 (60%) were positive for serum CEA, and 19 (63.33%) were positive for serum CA19-9. This indicated that the true positive rate of SDC2 gene methylation was higher than that of serum tumor markers (P < 0.05). The AUC of fecal SDC2 gene methylation was 0.981. These were higher than that of serum tumor markers (P < 0.05).

CONCLUSIONS

Fecal SDC2 gene detection has a high sensitivity and specificity for colorectal cancer. It has a very ideal detection effect in detecting colorectal cancer patients in the population.