Abstract
A biochemical Study was conducted in a case of alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) producing gastric carcinoma with high preoperative serum AFP level (14656 ng/ml), which metastasized to the liver postoperatively. Some notes on the relevant literatur is also presented here. After surgery serum AFP level rapidly decreased to 1057.7 ng/ml and AFP positive cells were found by immunoperoxidase staining accoding to the peroxidase-antiperoxidase (PAP) technique. Thus the patient was diagnosed as having an AFP-producing carcinoma of the stomach. Histologically AFP-producing cells were more commonly found in undifferentiated hepatoid cells than the others. Furthermore, in a study of crossed immuno-affinoelectrophoresis with lentil lectin, concanavalin A-nonreactive of serum AFP was lower (15%) than differentiated AFP producing gastric carcinoma. This was near to that of hepatoid celler carcinoma (5±7%). Serum AFP level, however, showed a reelevation and abdominal CT four months after the operation revealed multiple liver metastasis. It is through that some preventive treatments are important against liver metastasis in a case showing a high level of preoperative serum AFP.
