Understanding Stomach Cancer Screening
When thinking about screening for a particular type of cancer, scientists study the patterns of the cancer in the population to learn:
- Which people are more likely to get certain types of cancer
- What things around us may cause cancer
- What things we do in our lives that may cause cancer (see Stomach Cancer Risk Factors).
This information can help doctors decide:
- Who should be screened for certain types of cancer
- What types of screening tests people should have
- How often these tests should be done.
In the quest to find an effective
stomach cancer screening tool, researchers have looked at specific blood tests, such as those measuring serum pepsinogen (PGI and PGII) levels, and procedures, such as
upper endoscopy. Most of these studies have been done in Japan and China, where the rates of stomach cancer are much higher. To date, the data have been inconclusive as to whether these screening tools affect the
stomach cancer prognosis.
Therefore, routine stomach cancer screening for the general population is not recommended. However, stomach cancer screening may be recommended for some people who are at greater risk of developing the disease. People who are considered at risk include:
- Elderly people with atrophic gastritis or pernicious anemia
- Patients with partial gastrectomy
- Patients with the diagnosis of sporadic adenomas
- Those with familial adenomatous polyposis
- Those with hereditary nonpolyposis colon cancer
- Immigrant ethnic populations from countries with high rates of gastric carcinoma.
Even in these groups of people, the impact of screening on death from stomach cancer is not known.
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