Peritoneal lavage cytology and carcinoembryonic antigen determination in predicting peritoneal metastasis and prognosis of gastric cancer

摘要

AIM: To evaluate the role of peritoneal lavage cytology (PLC) and carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) determination of peritoneal washes (pCEA) in predicting the peritoneal metastasis and prognosis after curative resection of gastric cancer.METHODS: PLC and radioimmunoassay of CEA were performed in peritoneal washes from 64 patients with gastric cancer and 8 patients with benign diseases.RESULTS: The positive rate of pCEA (40.6%) was significantly higher than that of PLC (23.4%) (P<0.05). The positive rates of PLC and pCEA correlated with the depth of tumor invasion and lymph node metastasis (P<0.05). pCEA was found to have a higher sensitivity and a lower false-positive rate in predicting peritoneal metastasis after curative resection of gastric cancer as compared to PLC. The 1-, 3-, and 5-year survival rates of patients with positive cytologic findings or positive pCEA results were significantly lower than those of patients with negative cytologic findings or negative pCEA results (P<0.05). Multivariate analysis indicated that pCEA was an independent prognostic factor for the survival of patients with gastric cancer.CONCLUSION: Intraoperative pCEA is a more sensitive and reliable predictor of peritoneal metastasis as well as prognosis in patients with gastric cancer as compared to PLC method.