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©The Author(s) 2026. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Oncol. Jan 24, 2026; 17(1): 113612
Published online Jan 24, 2026. doi: 10.5306/wjco.v17.i1.113612
Published online Jan 24, 2026. doi: 10.5306/wjco.v17.i1.113612
Kita-Kyushu lung cancer antigen-1 expression in initial gastric tumors predicts multiple cancer development: A pilot study
Nobue Futawatari, Department of Surgery, National Hospital Organization Sagamihara National Hospital, Sagamihara 252-0395, Kanagawa, Japan
Nobue Futawatari, Yusuke Akimoto, Junji Maehara, Manabu Watanabe, Yoshihisa Saida, Department of Surgery, Toho University Ohashi Medical Center, Ohashi Meguro-Ku 153-8515, Tokyo, Japan
Takashi Fukuyama, Division of Biomedical Research, Kitasato University Medical Center, Kitamoto 364-8501, Saitama, Japan
Daisuke Hihara, Yosuke Okamoto, Department of Gastroenterology, Toho University Ohashi Medical Center, Ohashi Meguro-Ku 153-8515, Tokyo, Japan
Yuki Yokouchi, Kei Takahashi, Department of Pathology, Toho University Ohashi Medical Center, Ohashi Meguro-Ku 153-8515, Tokyo, Japan
Author contributions: Futawatari N participated in study design, data collection and analysis; Futawatari N and Fukuyama T drafted the manuscript; Akimoto Y, Maehara J, and Hihara D, and Okamoto Y performed data collection; Yokouchi Y and Takahashi K advised on pathology; Takahashi K, Watanabe M, and Saida Y revised the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Institutional review board statement: The Human Ethics Review Committee of Toho University Ohashi Medical Center, Japan (Approval No.H23034_H20023) approved the study protocol. All the experiments were performed in accordance with relevant guidelines and regulations.
Informed consent statement: All patients signed an informed consent prior to resection of the tissue samples used in this study.
Conflict-of-interest statement: A patent application is being prepared related to the use of the target expression as a biomarker for predicting multiple gastric cancer development. The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE Statement-checklist of items, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the STROBE Statement-checklist of items.
Data sharing statement: Data is provided within the manuscript or supplementary information files. Deidentified data supporting this study’s findings are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Takashi Fukuyama, PhD, Division of Biomedical Research, Kitasato University Medical Center, Arai 6-100, Kitamoto 364-8501, Saitama, Japan.
Received: August 31, 2025
Revised: October 16, 2025
Accepted: December 10, 2025
Published online: January 24, 2026
Processing time: 144 Days and 4.5 Hours
Revised: October 16, 2025
Accepted: December 10, 2025
Published online: January 24, 2026
Processing time: 144 Days and 4.5 Hours
Core Tip
Core Tip: We have previously reported that the cancer/testis antigen Kita-Kyushu lung cancer antigen-1 (KK-LC-1) is frequently expressed in gastric cancer (GC), with high expression observed in multiple GCs. Therefore, as a preliminary study, we investigated the relationship between KK-LC-1 expression and multiple GCs, focusing on its potential clinical utility. In the middle and lower stomach regions, KK-LC-1 expression was significantly associated with older age, differentiated histological type, and the presence of multiple cancers, with all cases in the multiple cancer group exhibiting KK-LC-1 positivity (100%). KK-LC-1 expression in primary gastric tumors suggests a higher risk of subsequent development of multiple GCs.