Publication:

Serum pepsinogen I and pepsinogen II levels and its ratio in patients with gastric cancer: a case control study

Background Cancer constitutes an enormous burden on society in more and less economically developed countries alike. The incidence of gastric cancer is found to increase in the developing countries like India due to change in the life style like having smoked food containing nitrates, smoking , alcoholism and consumption of large amount of red chillies. The objective of this study was to measure the serum pepsinogen I and pepsinogen II levels and its ratio in gastric cancer patients admitted in JSS hospital and Bharath Cancer Centre during the period October 2012 to October 2014 and to compare with controls.

Methods 80 patients - 40 patients with gastric cancer and 40 patients control were studied. Serum pepsinogen I (PG I) and pepsinogen II (PG II) levels were measured using ELISA.

Results The mean PG I levels for cancer patients and controls were 93.98μg/dl and 82.156μg/dl respectively, the mean PG II levels were 42.67 μg/dl and 18.79 μg/dl respectively. The PG I/II ratio in cancer patients is 2.75 and 5.73 in controls, the ratio was significantly lower in cancer patients (P value significant).

Conclusions The ultimate aim in the management of carcinoma stomach is the early detection of the disease. At present endoscopy and biopsy is the gold standard of diagnosis. Different screening tools are under development for the diagnosis of the disease. Our study evaluates a test which can be recommended as an alternative to the diagnosis of gastric carcinoma at an early stage.