Liquid biopsy of gastric cancer patients: Circulating tumor cells and cell-free nucleic acids

Table 4 Circulating cell-free mRNA in gastric cancer

Characteristic and number of patients		Controls (n)	Plasma/serum	Detection method		Detection rate/statistic value			Ref.
I-IV	52	20	Plasma	qRT-PCR	hTERT	7.5%	(preoperative)		Tani et al[147]
	(40 preoperative)				MUC1	1%
	(12 postoperative)				hTERT + MUC1	15%
					hTERT	16.7%	(postoperative)
					MUC1	8.3%
					hTERT + MUC1	16.7%
						No detection in controls
I-IV	89	42	Plasma	qRT-PCR	CXCR4↑	41.6%	[before surgery (n = 89)]		Xu et al[176]
[paired, before and						23.2%	[after surgery (n = 69)]
after surgery (n = 69)]						21.4%	[Ctrl. (n = 42)]
						P < 0.05	Before surgery (n = 89) vs Ctrl. (n = 42)	(a)
					Bmi-1↑	57.3%	[before surgery (n = 89)]
						43.5%	[after surgery (n = 69)]
						28.6%	[Ctrl. (n = 42)]
						P < 0.05	Before surgery (n = 89) vs Ctrl. (n = 42)	(a)
						P < 0.05	Before (n = 89) vs after (n = 69) surgery	(a)
I-IV	118	40 (gastritis)	Plasma	qRT-PCR	hTERT mRNA↑	P < 0.05	GC (n = 118) vs gastritis (n = 40)	(a)	Kang et al[123]
		58 (healthy controls)				P < 0.05	GC (n = 118) vs Ctrl. (n = 58)	(a)
						AUC = 0.891	GC (n = 118) vs Ctrl. (n = 58)
						DFS: P < 0.001		(b)
						DFS: P = 0.001		(c)
						OS: P < 0.001		(b)
						OS: P < 0.001		(c)

a: Mann-Whitney U-test; b: Kaplan-Meier survival curves, Log-rank test/Breslow-Wilcoxon test; c: Multivariate Cox proportional hazard regression model. AUC: Area under the receiver operating characteristic curve; DFS: Disease-free survival; OS: Overall survival; qRT-PCR: Quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction; hTERT: Human telomerase reverse transcriptase; MUC1: Mucin-1.