Mucosal expression of carcinoembryonic antigen and carbohydrate antigen 19-9 in patients with gastritis and gastric cancer

Sixty-eight patients (45 males, 23 females) were studied in order to assess the usefulness of mucosal tissue concentrations of both carcinoembryonic a ntigen (CEA) and carbohydrate antigen 19-9 (CA19-9) in detecting patients a t high risk for gastric cancer. CEA and CA19-9 were assayed on cytosol obta ined from multiple endoscopic biopsies of 41 patients with chronic superfic ial gastritis, 18 with chronic atrophic gastritis, and 9 with gastric cance r. Mucosal tissue concentrations of both CEA and CA19-9 increased from chro nic superficial gastritis to chronic atrophic gastritis and to gastric canc er (p = 0.005 and p = 0.002, respectively). Mucosal CEA levels in patients with intestinal metaplasia (IM) were significantly higher than in nonmetapl astic mucosa (p = 0.04), Epithelial dysplasia was associated with higher, t hough not significant, tissue concentrations of both CEA and CA19-9 when co mpared with IM. Finally, a correlation between serum levels and tissue conc entrations was observed only for CA19-9 (Pearson's correlation coefficient = 0.7). In conclusion, these data indicate that gastric mucose of patients with chronic atrophic gastritis and intestinal metaplasia express high leve ls of both CA19-9 and CEA.