Pre-operative serum levels of CA72-4 in patients with gastric adenocarcinoma.

BACKGROUND/AIMS: A retrospective study was designed to evaluate the clinical significance of preoperative serum levels of carcino-embryonic antigen (CEA) and CA72-4 in patients with advanced gastric adenocarcinoma.

METHODOLOGY

Pre-operative serum levels of CEA and CA72-4 were analyzed and compared with the proliferative activity of cancer cells, monitored in terms of the number of argyrophilic nucleolar organizer regions (AgNORs), in tumors from 153 patients with resected gastric adenocarcinoma with serosal invasion.

RESULTS

Elevated levels of CEA were frequently found in patients with lymph node metastasis and liver metastasis. By contrast, elevated levels of CA72-4 were frequently found in patients with peritoneal metastasis at the time of operation. A close correlation was found between pre-operative levels of serum CA72-4 and the AgNOR scores of tumors. Even when apparently curative operations were performed, peritoneal metastasis occurred these were detected quite soon, after apparently curative operations in patients with high pre-operative serum levels of CA72-4 and tumors with high proliferative activity.

CONCLUSIONS

This phenomenon might explain the poor prognosis of patients with high levels of CA72-4.