RESEARCH ARTICLE Inflammatory Serum Proteins Are Severely Altered in Metastatic Gastric Adenocarcinoma Patients from the Chinese Population

Background Inflammation is one of the major hallmarks of cancer. This study was designed to profile a panel of inflammatory mediators in gastric adenocarcinoma (GA) and to identify their poten-tial differences separately in metastatic and non-metastatic patient subgroups. Methods Serum samples from 216 GA patients and 333 healthy controls from China were analyzed for six proteins using the Luminex multiplex assay. Results The serum levels for all the six proteins were significantly elevated in metastatic GA com-pared to non-metastatic GA. Two acute phase proteins (SAA and CRP) and a CXC chemo-kine (GRO) were significantly elevated in metastatic GA (p <0.01) but smaller changes were observed in non-metastatic GA compared to healthy controls. OPN is moderately increased in non-metastatic GA (2.05-fold) and more severely elevated in metastatic GA (3.34-fold). Surprisingly, soluble VCAM1 and AGP were significantly lower in both non-metastatic an