Expression of Stanniocalcin 1 as a Potential Biomarker of Gastric Cancer

Objective: We investigated stanniocalcin 1 (STC 1) expression to assess its clinical utility as a blood marker in patients with gastric cancer and evaluated its biological impact in terms of tumor aggressiveness. Methods: Blood specimens from 93 patients with gastric cancer and 21 normal healthy volunteers were assessed by quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction for STC 1 mRNA expression. Results: The relative numbers of STC 1 mRNA copies were significantly higher in gastric cancer cell lines and in blood specimens from patients with gastric cancer than in blood specimens from healthy volunteers (p = 0.0001 and p = 0.003, respectively). The sensitivity and specificity of STC 1 mRNA expression for discriminating patients with gastric cancer from healthy volunteers were 69.9 and 71.4%, respectively. Furthermore, the sensitivity for STC 1 mRNA was higher than that for serum carcinoembryonic antigen and carbohydrate antigen 19-9. The presence of STC 1 expression was significantly correlated with depth of tumor invasion and tumor stage (p = 0.032 and p = 0.013, respectively). Conclusion: Our data strongly suggest that STC 1 is a potentially useful blood marker for predicting biological tumor aggressiveness in patients with gastric cancer.