Serum soluble E-cadherin is a good therapeutic monitoring marker in patients with gastric cancer after surgery

Abstract

Serum soluble E-cadherin is a degradation product of the tissue E-cadherin which is responsible for cell-cell adhesion . It is present in the circulation of normal population but is elelvated in patients with epithelial cancers. It has been shown to be a good prognostic marker in gastric cancer. However, its value in monitoring the disease activity in gastric cancer patients remained to be studied . The change in the serum concentrations of soluble Ecadherin in patients before and after operation for gastric cancer were investigated in this study. Sera from 33 patients were collected at the time of diagnosi s of gastric cancer confirmed histologically and after operat ion at day 10. Serum soluble E-cadherin concentrations were assayed using a commercially available sandwich ELISA kit from Zymed®. Each serum sample was measured twice. There were 19 men with mean age 68::!:13.5 years; and 14 women with mean age 63±14 years. Twenty-five of them had curative resections while 8 of them received palliative operation s. For those with curative resections, the mean pre-operative soluble E-cadherin concentration was 13009ng/ml while the mean post-operative concentration was 732lng/ml (p<O.OOI). However, there was no significant difference in the serum concentration of soluble E-cadherin in those patients receiving palliative operations (8807ng/ml vs 8769nglml, p=0.97). Therefore serum soluble E-cadherin may be a good therapeutic monitoring marker in patients with gastric cancer after surgery .