PROVIDENCE – Researchers at Rhode Island Hospital have found two molecular markers they believe could be used to predict outcomes for patients with stomach cancer, one of the most common and fatal cancers worldwide.
About 760,000 cases of stomach cancer are diagnosed worldwide each year, according to the National Cancer Institute. The five-year relative survival rate is 24 percent.
The study, published in the July 1 issue of Clinical Cancer Research, noted that patients who had poor outcomes following surgery for stomach cancer also had extremely low amounts of the proteins gastrokine 1 and 2, which are produced by normal stomach cells.
Previous research has found that once stomach cells become cancerous, they manufacture very low amounts of those proteins, but this study is the first to link low protein levels with patients’ prognosis. The researchers said this discovery could eventually help doctors determine which patients need additional treatments such as chemotherapy.
“Unfortunately, stomach cancer is difficult to cure unless it’s discovered early, but because the early stage of the disease has very few symptoms, the cancer is usually advanced by the time it’s diagnosed,” said Dr. Steven Moss, lead author of the study and a gastroenterologist with Rhode Island Hospital and associate professor of medicine at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University.
“That’s what makes our findings so significant,” Moss added, “because if the potential markers identified in our study can help predict a patient’s prognosis, we can decide right away which course of action to take and hopefully help patients live longer and more comfortably.”
Stomach cancers appear in two forms: “diffuse” – a more aggressive form of cancer that can occur throughout the stomach and is more likely to spread – or “intestinal” – resembling the cells normally found only in the small or large intestines.
Both types of cancer are often triggered by a chronic infection brought on by Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori), a common bacterium that causes stomach inflammation and ulcers. The most common treatment is surgery, with partial or full removal of the stomach.
Moss and colleagues looked at tissue samples from more than 150 stomach cancer patients who underwent surgery at Rhode Island Hospital and The Miriam Hospital. The median survival was about two years in patients with low or nonexistent protein levels, versus more than 10 years for patients with normal levels.
The study was funded by research grants from the National Institutes of Health.
Rhode Island Hospital, a private nonprofit institution founded in 1863, is a founding member of the Lifespan health system and the largest teaching hospital for The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. Additional information is available at www.rhodeislandhospital.org .
