Scientists from Nagoya University found that the level of SDF4 protein in the blood can detect stomach cancer even in the early stages with almost 90% accuracy. The research was published in the journal Scientific Reports.
Doctors collected blood samples from 80 healthy people and 582 patients with cancerous tumors in the stomach, breast, intestines, pancreas, esophagus and liver. Levels of a specific protein, stromal cell-derived factor 4 (SDF4), were higher in cancer patients. An increase in the concentration of this molecule occurred in gastric tumors even at the asymptomatic initial stage.
Further analysis showed that SDF4 as a biomarker for gastric cancer had 89% sensitivity and 99% specificity. Sensitivity measures how well a test detects disease in sick patients, while specificity measures how well it rules out disease in healthy people. SDF4 outperformed existing cancer biomarkers CEA and CA19-9 in terms of sensitivity by 13% and 17%, respectively.
Late detection of cancer may affect the effectiveness of treatment and reduce your chances of survival. Current biomarkers for detecting gastric cancer may be inaccurate and may not detect all tumor types. Other methods to detect stomach cancer have also been proposed, but these are generally expensive, technically challenging and uncomfortable for the patient, and therefore do not allow widespread screening for stomach cancer.
used to be a doctor named Three causes of stomach cancer.