Prognostic value of the glycoprotein TAG-72 in patients with gastric cancer

The specificity of the tumor markers used to date in patients with gastric cancer has not been satisfactory. For this reason we decided to evaluate th e utility of TAG-72 in this disease. Between 1993 and 1998 we determined th e levels of TAG-72 in 638 subjects (148 healthy volunteers, 33 patients wit h chronic renal failure (CRF), 149 patients with benign diseases of the liv er, 95 patients with benign gastrointestinal diseases and 213 patients with gastric cancer). TAG-72 was measured using an IRMA method. Statistical ana lysis of the data was performed with the BMDP package. We established a cut off for TAG-72 of 3 U/mL, corresponding to the 92.6th percentile of the hea lthy controls. We observed that neither CRF nor benign liver diseases affec ted TAG-72 levels, while certain benign gastrointestinal diseases did cause alterations of the marker. Using Cox multivariate analysis we discovered t hat the preoperative TAG-72 level was an independent prognostic variable as sociated with both disease-free and overall survival. We conclude that, alt hough TAG-72 is not useful for the diagnosis of gastric cancer, it is a sui table tool for disease monitoring and prognostic assessment.