Background: The ability to make a precise diagnosis is a valuable and effective method in improving the prognosis of patients with gastric carcinoma. The authors examined whether analysis of lactate
dehydrogenase (LDH) subunits with A/B ratio in combination with Ki-67 labelling index may be used as specific prognostic factors in patients with gastric carcinoma.Material/Methods: The prognostic significance of metabolic and proliferative activity was investigated in 22 patients (14 male and 8 female) who underwent curative gastrectomy for gastric carcinoma (16 cases of adenocarcinoma tubulare and 6 cases of adenocarcinoma mucocellulare) with use of electrophoretic analysis of LDH isoforms and immunostaining of Ki-67 antigen.Results: Median of A/B value in samples from tumour tissue was 1.03 (range 0.59-1.54). The values of A/B ratio showed no correlation between cell proliferative activity and lymphatic invasion or survival time (p>0.05). Median of Ki-67 LI in gastric cancer was 41.3% (range 24.0-79.6%). There were no significant relations between the Ki-67 index and histological type of gastric cancer, lymph node metastasis and the survival time (p>0.05).Conclusions: This study demonstrates that enzymatic activity of gastric tumours, determined by A/B ratio in combination with proliferative activity, determined by Ki-67 LI could not be used as prognostic factor in patients affected by gastric cancer.

Keywords: lactate dehydrogenase, Ki-67 labelling index, gastric cancer