Abstract
We studied the utility of serum pepsinogen test (PG test) in combination with upper gastrointestinal series (UGIS) in comparison with upper gastrointestinal series alone for detection of stomach cancer in mass screening at Kansai Occupational Health Association. We adopted PG I ≤30 ng/ml and I/II ≤2.0 as the screening cut off levels in the PG test. Consequently, the rate of further examination increased to 9. 4% after PG test and UGIS were used together, and as this rate was less than 10%, it was considered acceptable. The detection rate of cancer (max 0. 09%) by PG test combined with UGIS was almost the same as that (max 0. 07%) of UGIS alone. There were some cases of early cancer registering PG test positive and UGIS negative, and on the other hand, some cases of advanced cancer were PG test negative and UGIS positive. Our findings suggested that PG test and UGIS screened different populations from each other. Therefore, the PG test was a useful method in screening for stomach cancer because it could detect early cancer not found by UGIS alone. Thus, we found that the PG test was useful as a complementary test for UGIS in mass screening.
