Background: Low serum
L1 cell adhesion molecule (
L1CAM) has been found in several malignant
tumors. Here, we aimed to evaluate the diagnostic potential for serum
L1CAM in patients with
gastric cancers (GC) and esophagogastric junction
adenocarcinoma (EJA). Methods:
Enzyme-linked
immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was carried out to detect
L1CAM level in sera of 148 GC patients, 59 EJA patients and 148 healthy controls. Receiver operating characteristics (ROC) was employed to evaluate diagnostic accuracy. Results: The concentrations of serum
L1CAM were significantly lower in GC and EJA than those in healthy controls (P<0.001). Detection of
L1CAM provided a sensitivity of 83.1%, a specificity of 62.2%, and an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.769 (95% CI: 0.715-0.823) in diagnosing GC, and a sensitivity of 66.1%, a specificity of 62.2%, and an AUC of 0.672 (95% CI: 0.590-0.755) in diagnosing EJA. Similar results were observed in the diagnosis of early-stage GC (0.681 (95%CI: 0.596-0.766)) and early-stage EJA (0.674 (95%CI: 0.528-0.820)). Analysis of clinical data showed that the levels of
L1CAM were significantly associated with
lymph node metastasis in GC (P<0.05). Conclusions: Our study showed that serum
L1CAM might be a diagnostic
biomarker for GC and EJA.