Background: Stomach cancer is among the most commonly occurring malignancies worldwide. It would be beneficial to develop a urine-based assay whereby patients with undiagnosed stomach cancer could be screened and their cancer detected in the earliest stages.
Methods: A urinary metabonomics method based on ultra-performance liquid chromatography combined with quadruple time-of-flight mass spectrometry was used to analyze urine samples from patients with stomach cancer and healthy controls.
Results: Statistical analysis revealed a clear separation of patients and healthy controls using the aforementioned methodology. Some significantly changed metabolites were identified.
Conclusions: Use of the metabonomics method in patients with stomach cancer could effectively detect distinct changes in urinary metabolites and had the capacity to detect cancer; therefore, it may be a valuable tool in earlier diagnosis. Furthermore, the detection and identification of altered metabolites in the current study may help elucidate possible mechanisms involved in stomach cancer.