Abstract
On the hypothesis that atrophic gastritis is a precancerous condition of gastric cancer, the serum pepsinogen (PG) test was developed as a method of screening the gastric cancer high-risk group using serum PG levels. This research involved subjects who underwent mass screening of the stomach at the workplace. It has reported that patients suffering from atrophic gastritis caused by a Helicobacter pylori (Hp) infection belong to the gastric cancer high-risk group and that serum PG levels serve as a sensitive marker of atrophic gastritis. Moreover, interleukin 1-beta (IL-IB) polymorphisms were said to affect gastric acid secretion and to participate in the generation of gastric cancer.
The workplace medical checkups of the stomach provided ample information on the efficacy of current inspection methods in establishing a link between atrophic gastritis caused by Hp infection and high risk of gastric cancer. The result of the experiment was that serum PG I/II ratio of the IL-IB-511T/T genotype was insiginificantly lower than the PG I/II ratio of other IL-IB-511 polymorphisms. Furthermore, subjects with a serum PG I level of less than 70ng/ml and a PG I/II ratio of less than 3.0 were not deemed Hp-positive.
Therefore, we assume subjects with atrophic gastritis who have the IL-IB-511T/T genotype and are PG positive for Hp infection might belong to the gastric cancer high-risk group, and might help shed light on the effects of Hp eradication on the risk level of gastric cancer.
