Plasma expression of the intestinal metaplasia markers CDH17 and TFF3 in patients with gastric cancer.

Abstract

Few reliable blood markers are available for detecting gastric cancer, mainly owing to the heterogeneity of the cancer. To establish gastric cancer diagnostic markers, we evaluated the levels of plasma cadherin 17 (CDH17) and trefoil factor 3 (TFF3), which are secretory proteins and known markers for intestinal metaplasia (IM), in patients with gastric cancer. The protein expression level was analyzed in blood plasma samples from 111 gastric cancer patients and 44 healthy individuals, using a sandwich ELISA kit, followed by statistical analyses. Overall, the plasma levels of CDH17 and TFF3 were not significantly different between groups (p= 0.160 and p= 0.113, respectively). However, CDH17 expression was significantly elevated in patients with stage II and III gastric cancers compared to that in healthy controls (p= 0.023 and p= 0.037, respectively). In contrast, TFF3 levels were significantly elevated in patients with stage I (p= 0.001) and T1 gastric cancer (p= 0.013). The sensitivity and specificity of CDH17 were 66.7 and 61.4%, respectively (cutoff point: 0.189 ng/mL); for TFF3, these values were 62.2 and 56.8%, respectively (cutoff point: 5.215 ng/mL). These findings indicate that secretory protein markers for metaplastic lineages can be used as blood markers for gastric cancer.