Objective: To explore the alteration and clinical significance of interleukin 23 (IL-23) and pepsinogen 1 (PG1) in the sera and tissues of patients with gastric diseases.
Methods: The study collected the tissues of chronic superficial gastritis, chronic atrophic gastritis with intestinal metaplasia, gastric cancer as wells as the peripheral blood samples from the patients suffering from the three kinds of gastric diseases. Immunohistochemical staining was performed to detect IL-23 expression in the gastric involved tissues from these patients. The concentrations of serum PG1 were determined by time-resolved fluoroimmunoassay and the levels of serum IL-23 were detected by ELISA. The relationships between the serum IL-23 and PG1 in chronic atrophic gastritis with intestinal metaplasia tissues or gastric cancer tissues were analyzed by Pearson correlation analysis.
Results: Compared with the chronic superficial gastritis tissues, the expression of IL-23 significantly increased in chronic atrophic gastritis with intestinal metaplasia tissues and gastric cancer tissues, so did the serum IL-23. Nevertheless, the expression level of serum PG1 significantly decreased in chronic atrophic gastritis with intestinal metaplasia group and gastric cancer group. There was a negative correlation between IL-23 and PG1 in the chronic atrophic gastritis with intestinal metaplasia group or in gastric cancer group.
Conclusion: Enhanced expression of IL-23 occurred in chronic atrophic gastritis with intestinal metaplasia tissue and gastric cancer tissue, and serum IL-23 had a negative correlation with PG1.