[Significance of quantitative and qualitative analysis of fecal alpha 1-antitrypsin in gastric cancer patients].

The levels of fecal alpha 1-antitrypsin (alpha 1-AT) were significantly high in advanced gastric cancer patients, compared with those in healthy control subjects and early gastric cancer patients. As the background, a process was assumed that excessive alpha 1-AT which flowed into the stomach through the cancerous lesion is saved from rapid proteolysis in the gastric juice of hypoacidity and proceeds to the small intestine. A molecular weight 38000 form of alpha 1-AT was detected in all of the stools of the control subjects and the gastric cancer patients by Western blotting analysis, and which was shown to lack its sugar chain by crossed immunoelectrophoresis (CIE) and crossed immuno-affino-electrophoresis (CIAE) analysis.