Gastric cancer is a common high-incidence malignant gastrointestinal form of cancer that poses serious threat to human life. At present, there are about 980 000 new cases and 730 000 deaths worldwide each year, and both morbidity and mortality are the third highest among malignant tumours. 1 In China, the incidence and mortality of gastric cancer rank it first in malignant tumours of digestive system and second in malignant tumours, and the mortality from gastric cancer accounts for 23.18% of all malignant tumours. 2 Currently, endoscopy, X-ray, B-mode ultrasonography, CT, MRI and exfoliative cytology are the main methods for clinic diagnosis of gastric cancer, but these diagnostic methods have some deficiencies when trying to make an early diagnosis of gastric cancer. 3 This lack of specific and sensitive screening indicators is the most important factor in hampering early diagnosis of gastric cancer, and this leads to the fact that the majority of patients with gastric cancer are in the middle and late stages at the time of clinical diagnosis, ultimately resulting in poor clinical efficacy of treatment and