title: Follow-up study of peripheral blood carcinoembryonic antigen mRNA using reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction as an early marker of clinical recurrence in patients with curatively resected gastric cancer.
abstract: In this study, we evaluated the clinical significance of detecting carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) mRNA in the peripheral blood samples of patients with gastric cancer. We analyzed the peripheral blood of 46 patients with gastric cancer who had undergone curative resection. The presence of CEA mRNA was serially monitored using a CEA-specific reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) every 2 months. The clinical recurrence rates according to category were as follows: 100% (3 of 3) in the positive conversion, 0% (0 of 18) in the negative conversion, 50% (3 of 6) in the always-positive, and 10.5% (2 of 19) in the always-negative category. The recurrence rate was 66.7% (6 of 9) in the positive group and 5.4% (2 of 37) in the negative group (P < or =0.00022). Multiple logistic regression analysis demonstrated that only group variable had a significant effect on clinical recurrence (P = 0.015). We conclude that RT-PCR analysis of CEA mRNA in the peripheral blood seems to be a promising tool for the early detection of micrometastatic circulating tumor cells in gastric carcinoma patients and that it can be useful used to identify patients at risk for recurring.
authors.affiliation: Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Oncology, College of Medicine, Korea University, Seoul, Korea.
authors.forename: Jae Hong
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Seo
authors.forename: Chul Won
authors.initials: CW
authors.lastname: Choi
authors.forename: Byung Soo
authors.initials: BS
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Sang Won
authors.initials: SW
authors.lastname: Shin
authors.forename: Yeul Hong
authors.initials: YH
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Jae Sun
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Sang Woo
authors.initials: SW
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: Jae Hyun
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Choi
authors.forename: Yung Tae
authors.initials: YT
authors.lastname: Park
authors.forename: Young Jae
authors.initials: YJ
authors.lastname: Mok
authors.forename: Chong Suk
authors.initials: CS
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Jun Suk
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Kim
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D002272:Carcinoembryonic Antigen / Q000097:blood* / Q000235:genetics; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009360:Neoplastic Cells, Circulating; D012333:RNA, Messenger / Q000097:blood*; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; D013274:Stomach Neoplasms / Q000097:blood* / Q000601:surgery
chemical_list: D002272:Carcinoembryonic Antigen; D012333:RNA, Messenger