ArticleBMC gastroenterology2021
Both the serum AFP test and AFP/GPC3/SALL4 immunohistochemistry are beneficial for predicting the prognosis of gastric adenocarcinoma.
Article in BMC gastroenterology, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed, 14 citations in OpenAlex.
- Case Report: Synchronous Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma and Gastric Cardia Adenocarcinoma with Hepatoid Differentiation After Neoadjuvant Chemoimmunotherapy.Journal of clinical medicine · 2026Article
- Prognostic model for patients with hepatoid adenocarcinoma of the stomach.BMC gastroenterology · 2026Article
- Alpha-Fetoprotein Is a Potential Biomarker for Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma (PDAC): A Case Report.Cancer reports (Hoboken, N.J.) · 2026Article
- Article
- Longitudinal analysis of serum alpha-fetoprotein in stable and progressive metastatic pancreatic neuroendocrine tumours.Endocrine connections · 2025Article
- Genomic landscape and potential therapeutic targets in alpha-fetoprotein-producing gastric cancer.Gastric cancer : official journal of the International Gastric Cancer Association and the Japanese Gastric Cancer Association · 2025Article
- SALL4 in gastrointestinal tract cancers: upstream and downstream regulatory mechanisms.Molecular medicine (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2024Review
- Alpha-fetoprotein predicts the treatment efficacy of immune checkpoint inhibitors for gastric cancer patients.BMC cancer · 2024Article
- High serum alpha-fetoprotein and positive immunohistochemistry of alpha-fetoprotein are related to poor prognosis of gastric cancer with liver metastasis.Scientific reports · 2024Review
- Immunohistochemical characteristics and potential therapeutic regimens of hepatoid adenocarcinoma of the stomach: a study of 139 cases.The journal of pathology. Clinical research · 2024Article
- Hepatoid adenocarcinoma of the stomach with neuroendocrine differentiation: A case report and review of literature.World journal of clinical cases · 2023Article
- Gastric Carcinoma With Sebaceous Differentiation and SALL4 Expression.ACG case reports journal · 2023Article
- New substituted molecular classifications of advanced gastric adenocarcinoma: characteristics and probable treatment strategies.Journal of the National Cancer Center · 2022Article
- Oxidative stress-related patterns determination for establishment of prognostic models, and characteristics of tumor microenvironment infiltration.Frontiers in surgery · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
10 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundBoth gastric adenocarcinoma with primitive enterocyte phenotype (GAPEP) (including hepatoid adenocarcinoma) and alpha-fetoprotein (AFP)-producing gastric adenocarcinoma have poor prognoses. However, the value of the serum AFP test and AFP/glypican-3 (GPC3)/spalt-like transcription factor 4 (SALL4) immunohistochemistry is still not clear, and these two methods have not yet been thoroughly compared.
methodsWe collected 421 consecutive non-neoadjuvant surgically or endoscopically resected gastric adenocarcinoma patients with serum AFP results before surgery (group A). We divided these cases into serum AFP-high (sAFP-H) and serum AFP-normal (sAFP-N) by serum AFP levels, and into GAPEP (expressing AFP, GPC3, or SALL4) and non-GAPEP (nGAPEP) by AFP/GPC3/SALL4 immunohistochemistry results. We also collected 12 non-resected gastric adenocarcinoma patients with serum AFP ≥ 7 ng/mL before treatment (group B). We analyzed these patients' clinicopathological characteristics and prognoses.
resultsSeventeen (4.04%) patients in group A were sAFP-H. These patients were younger and mainly had tubular adenocarcinoma with later pT (P = 0.014) and pN (P = 0.047) categories and more lymphovascular invasion (P < 0.001), perineural spread (P = 0.008), and metastases or recurrence (P < 0.001). For immunohistochemistry, 34 (8.08%) cases were GAPEP, and GAPEP cases also had later pT categories than nGAPEP cases (P = 0.001). Most group B patients with elevated serum AFP (especially > 1000 ng/mL) had simultaneous metastases, mainly liver metastases. Both the serological method and immunohistochemical method were useful for predicting prognosis (AUC
conclusionBoth the serum AFP level and immunohistochemical expression of AFP/GPC3/SALL4 can be used to indicate a poor prognosis for gastric adenocarcinoma.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.