Clinical Significance of Cellular Fibronectin as a Tumor Marker in Gastric Cancer Patients

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Fibronectins (FNs) are adhesive glycoproteins that have variable primary structures owing to cell type-specific splicing of the FN precursor mRNA. FNs can be classified as plasma (p-FN) and cellular (c-FN) types, and c-FN may play a role as a marker of malignancies. CEA and CA 125 have been reported as useful tumor markers, but FNs have not studied adequately in gastric cancers. METHODS: We evaluated the clinical significance of urinary and plasma c-FN in thirty-five patients who were operated on our department due to gastric cancer from January 1997 to August 1997. The c-FN level was determined by enzyme immunoassay using a FIBRONECTIN EIA kit (Takara Shuzo Co., Kyoto, Japan). RESULTS: The levels of urine c-FN in gastric cancer patients (215.6 470.2) were higher than those in the control groups (94.1 63.0 ng/mgCr) and also showed a tendency to increase with advancing of tumor growth. A higher rate of increased urine c-FN also was identified in patients with distant metastasis than in patients without distant metastasis (6/8 vs. 10/27, p=0.05). However, p-FN didn't showed any differences according to extent of tumor invasion and/or presence of distant metastasis. Other parameters, such as age, sex, preoperative tumor size, and depth of invasion, were not correlated with urine and plasma c-FN. CONCLUSIONS: Urine c-FN may be useful as a new tumor marker in gastric cancer and can be helpful in early detection of metastasis and peritoneal seeding, but further studies and follow up are needed for complete clinical application.