Role of serum EBV‐VCA IgG detection in assessing gastric cancer risk and prognosis in Northern Chinese population

The study aimed to investigate the role of serum EBV‐VCA IgG in assessing gastric cancer (GC) risk and prognosis. A total of 1790 Northern Chinese participants with pathologically confirmed disease underwent EBV‐VCA IgG serologic testing using enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), including 821 controls, 410 atrophic gastritis (AG) patients, and 559 GC patients. We found that positive EBV‐VCA IgG was significantly associated with GC and its precursor, conferring a 1.55‐ and 1.36‐fold increased risk of GC and AG, respectively (P = 0.001, 95% CI = 1.21‐1.99; P = 0.011, 95% CI = 1.07‐1.72, respectively). The risk effects were more remarkable in younger, female, and Helicobacter pylori‐negative individuals than in older, male, and H. pylori‐positive individuals. EBV‐VCA IgG‐positive subjects had a lower PGI/II ratio than EBV‐VCA IgG‐negative subjects (median 8.0 vs 8.8, P = 0.001), especially those in the H. pylori‐positive (median 6.1 vs 6.8, P = 0.027) and GC subgroups (median 6.4 vs 7.9, P = 0.020). In the intestinal GC subgroup, the survival of EBV‐VCA IgG‐positive patients was worse than that of EBV‐VCA IgG‐negative patients (P = 0.041, HR = 2.45, 95% CI = 1.04‐5.78). Our study suggests that EBV‐VCA IgG seropositivity has potential in predicting the risk of GC and its precursor as well as the prognosis of histologically classified GC.