Clinical significance and usefulness of soluble heparin binding-epidermal growth factor in gastric cancer

Table 4 Serum levels of soluble heparin-binding epidermal growth factor-like growth factor and carcinoembryonic antigen between non-cancer and cancer groups

Groups	Non-cancer2(n = 90)	Cancer3(n = 67)	P value4
Serum sHB-EGF1 (pg/mL)	96.0 ± 78.2	232.1 ± 144.9	< 0.001
Serum CEA1 (ng/mL)	1.9 ± 1.4	3.3 ± 3.7	0.004

¹All tested values are expressed as the mean ± SD.

²Non-cancer groups include normal/gastritis group and IM/dysplasia group.

³Cancer groups include early gastric cancer (EGC) and advanced gastric cancer (AGC) groups.

⁴An independent sample t-test is applied to compare the differences of means between non-cancer and cancer groups. P < 0.05 (two-tailed) was considered statistically significant. CEA: Carcinoembryonic antigen; sHB-EGF: Soluble heparin-binding EGF-like growth factor.