SYNCHRONOUS ELEVATION OF SOLUBLE INTERCELLULAR-ADHESION MOLECULE-1 (ICAM-1) AND VASCULAR CELL-ADHESION MOLECULE-1 (VCAM-1) CORRELATES WITH GASTRIC-CANCER PROGRESSION

Soluble forms of ICAM-1 (sICAM-1) and VCAM-1 (sVCAM-1) have been repor ted from the supernatant of cytokine-activated endothelial cells, canc er cells and from sera of cancer patients. We measured sICAM-1 and sVC AM-1 from the serum of 20 healthy volunteers and 142 gastric cancer pa tients by ELISA assay. Ninety-five patients were operable and 47 patie nts were inoperable at the time of this study. Particularly in the 28 operable patients, we sampled both portal and peripheral blood simulta neously and measured the levels of the soluble forms of cell adhesion molecules (sCAMs). The sCAMs level and sero-positivity rate increased with cancer progression in order of the healthy controls operable pati ents, and inoperable patients. In inoperable cancer the sICAM-1 level increased more with liver metastasis. sICAM-1 and sVCAM-1 did not corr elate with each other in either portal or peripheral blood. A total of 58.3% of patients with liver metastasis and 22.9% of patients without liver metastasis showed synchronous expression of both sCAMs (p=0.03) . Synchronous sere-positivity of sCAMs and alpha FP was higher with li ver metastasis (p=0.01). The median overall survival duration which co -expressed both sCAMs was 9 months. This showed a significant differen ce compared with the sICAMs non-expressing group, where the median sur vival was not reached until 24 months follow-up (p=0.002). The synchro nous expression of sCAMs was an independent risk factor in gastric can cer patients. We raise the possibility that synchronous sICAM-1 and sV CAM-1 elevation may be a useful monitor to determine tumor burden in g astric cancer.