To investigate and analyze the clinical significance of stem cell markers CD133, CD44v6, PSCA and Oct-4 expression in the gastric cancer tissues.

51 patients with gastric cancer in Chongqing Liangjiang New Area first people's Hospital of Gastroenterology was admitted as the research object, and 70 patients with other benign and malignant disease of the stomach was selected as well. The expression rates of CD133, CD44v6, PSCA and Oct-4 were compared between gastric cancer patients and other patients with benign and malignant disease of the stomach; and we studied the relationship between the stem cell marker CD133, CD44v6, PSCA , Oct-4 and clinical characteristics of gastric cancer and lymph node status. χ² test was used to deal with all the data.

The positive rates of CD133, CD44v6, PSCA, Oct-4 in the gastric cancer group were 64.71﹪, 68.63﹪, 66.67﹪, 60.78﹪ respectively, which were significantly higher than those of chronic superficial gastritis, atrophic gastritis, gastric ulcer, gastric polyps, gastric tumor (χ²= 31.583, 2, 33.475, 30.171, 28.751, P= 0.000, 0.000, 0.000, 0.000). The positive rates of CD133, CD44v6, PSCA and Oct-4 in middle and low differentiated group were 55.56﹪, 55.56﹪, 55.56﹪ and 58.33﹪respectively, which were higher than those with high differentiation (26.67﹪, 33.33﹪, 26.67﹪ and 33.33﹪) ( c² values were 3.547, 2.092, 3.547 and 2.648, P values were 0.069, 0.142, 0.069, 0.104); The positive rates of CD133, CD44v6, PSCA and Oct-4 in infiltration depth T3-T4 group were 52.94﹪, 70.59﹪, 58.82﹪ and 64.71﹪ respectively, which were higher than those in T1 ~ T2 group (23.53﹪, 41.18﹪, 23.53﹪ and 35.29﹪) (c² values are 3.997, 4.113, 5.667 and 3.960, P values are 0.041, 0.032, 0.014, 0.046) ; the positive rates of CD133, CD44v6, PSCA and Oct-4 in the largest tumor diameter of more than 5 cm group were 48.57﹪, 57.14﹪, 45.71﹪ and 48.57﹪ respectively, which were higher than those of diameter < 5 cm (18.75﹪, 25﹪, 12.50﹪ and 18.75﹪) (c² values were 4.097, 4.554, 5.304 and 4.097, P values were 0.037, 0.024, 0.019, 0.037). The positive rates of CD133, CD44v6, PSCA and Oct-4 in metastatic foci were 50.00﹪, 50.00﹪, 46.15﹪ and 53.85﹪, CD133, CD44v6, PSCA and Oct-4 of the primary foci were 64﹪, 48﹪, 40﹪ and 52﹪ respectively, and there was no statistical difference between two groups (c² values were 1.018, 0.020, 0.197 and 0.017, P values were 0.376, 0.894, 0.769 and 0.913).

The expressions of cancer stem cell markers CD133, CD44v6, PSCA and Oct-4 which are mostly used as molecular markers in the clinical diagnosis of gastric carcinoma may be related with the degree of differentiation, depth of invasion and tumor size of gastric cancer, but have nothing to do with the lymph node metastasis, which indicate its potentials in indicating the incidence of gastric cancer.