Unsaturated free fatty acids: a potential biomarker panel for early detection of gastric cancer

Changes in the levels of free fatty acids (FFAs) are closely associated with physiological status. Serum levels of C-16:1, C-18:3, C-18:2, C-18:1, C-20:4, and C-22:6 in 164 gastric cancer (GC) patients and 111 benign gastric disease (BGD) patients were significantly decreased compared with 252 healthy controls. Receiver operating characteristic analysis showed that the biomarker panel including C-16:1, C-18:3, C-18:2, C-20:4, and C-22:6 presents a high diagnostic ability to differentiate early-stage GC patients from healthy controls plus BGD patients, with a sensitivity of 80.6% and a specificity of 72.7%.