Clinical Significance of Serum Pepsinogen Levels in Gastric Cancer

Objective To evaluate the relationship between serum pepsinogen level and gastric cancer.Methods Serum pepsinogen Ⅰ and Ⅱ levels were measured by radioimmunoassay in 190 healthy controls,and 103 patients with gastric cancer,19 gastric ulcer,64 duodenal ulcer,30 chronic gastritis,8 gastric hemorrhages,18 total gastrectomy,6 without recurrence and 17 with recurrence after total gastrectomy.The results were analyzed by statistics method.Results Compared with healthy controls,the serum PGⅠ levels of duodenal ulcer patients and serum PGⅡ levels of gastric ulcer were significantly higher.The serum PGⅠlevels of gastritis patients were significantly lower and the serum PGⅠ levels and PGⅠ/PGⅡ ratio of gastric cancer patients were much more lower.After total gastrectomy,the serum PGⅠ and PGⅡ levels of patients with recurrence of gastric cancer were significantly higher than those without recurrence.Using the cutoff value of 35μg/L for PGⅠ and 1.5 for PGⅠ/PGⅡratio,the sensitivity and specificity of the combined tests for gastric cancer was 71.6% and 83.0%,respectively.Conclusion The changes of serum PGⅠ and PGⅡ levels are valuable for diagnosis of gastric cancer and monitoring the recurrence of gastric cancer after total gastrectomy.