AIM: To explore the preliminary identification of serum protein pattern models that may be novel potential biomarkers in the detection of gastric cancer.METHODS: A total of 130 serum samples, including 70 from patients with gastric cancer and 60 from healthy adults, were detected by surface-enhanced laser desorption and ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (SELDI-TOF-MS). The data of spectra were analyzed by Biomarker Patterns Software (BPS). Thirty serum samples of gastric cancer patients and 30 serum samples of healthy adults were grouped into the training group to build models, and the other 70 samples were used to test and evaluate the models. The samples of the test group were judged only with their peaksheight and were separated into cancer group or healthy control group by BPS automatically and the judgments were checked with the histopathologic diagnosis of the samples.RESULTS: Sixteen mass peaks were found to be potential biomarkers with a significant level of P＜0.01.Among them, nine mass peaks showed increased expression in patients with gastric cancer. Analyzed by BPS, two peaks were chosen to build the model for gastric cancer detection. The sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of the model were 90%, 36/40, 86.7%, 26/30,and 88.6%, 62/70, respectively, which were greatly higher than those of clinically used serum biomarkers CEA (carcinoembryonic antigen), CA19-9 and CA72-4.Stage Ⅰ/Ⅱ gastric cancer samples of the test group were all judged correctly.CONCLUSION: The novel biomarkers in serum and the established model could be potentially used in the detection of gastric cancer. However, large-scale studies should be carried on to further explore the clinical impact on the model.