淋巴结（LN）状态对评估相对早期胃癌（GC；T1-T2）治疗（内镜或手术）的治愈潜力至关重要。目前，缺乏稳健而便捷的方法来在治疗决策之前鉴定LN转移。利用来自癌症基因组图谱（TCGA）的初级T1胃癌数据的长链非编码RNA（lncRNA）的基因组范围表达谱，用于确定能够检测GC LN转移的lncRNA表达特征，并建立基于深度学习的10-lncRNA风险预测模型。在硅验证和临床验证方法中评估了lncRNA面板在诊断LN转移方面的表现。硅验证是使用TCGA和亚洲癌症研究组（ACRG）数据集进行的。临床验证是在T1和T2患者中进行的，并将面板的效果与传统肿瘤标志物和计算机断层扫描（CT）进行比较。基因组范围RNA表达的分析确定了一组lncRNA面板，用于预测T1期胃癌的LN转移（AUC=0.961）。然后构建了一个由10个lncRNA构成的风险预测模型，该模型在T1和T2数据集中成功验证（TCGA，AUC=0.852；ACRG，AUC=0.834）。此后，在临床队列中验证了lncRNA面板的临床性能（T1，AUC=0.812；T2，AUC=0.805；T1+T2，AUC=0.764）。值得注意的是，与CT和传统肿瘤标志物相比，该面板表现出显著更好的性能。该新型10-lncRNA能够稳健地诊断相对早期胃癌（T1-T2）中的LN转移，具有良好的临床潜力。© 2023. 作者。

Lymph node (LN) status is vital to evaluate the curative potential of relatively early gastric cancer (GC; T1-T2) treatment (endoscopic or surgery). Currently, there is a lack of robust and convenient methods to identify LN metastasis before therapeutic decision-making.Genome-wide expression profiles of long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) in primary T1 gastric cancer data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) was used to identify lncRNA expression signature capable of detecting LN metastasis of GC and establish a 10-lncRNA risk-prediction model based on deep learning. The performance of the lncRNA panel in diagnosing LN metastasis was evaluated both in silico and clinical validation methods. In silico validation was conducted using TCGA and Asian Cancer Research Group (ACRG) datasets. Clinical validation was performed on T1 and T2 patients, and the panel's efficacy was compared with that of traditional tumor markers and computed tomography (CT) scans.Profiling of genome-wide RNA expression identified a panel of lncRNA to predict LN metastasis in T1 stage gastric cancer (AUC = 0.961). A 10-lncRNA risk-prediction model was then constructed, which was validated successfully in T1 and T2 datasets (TCGA, AUC = 0.852; ACRG, AUC = 0.834). Thereafter, the clinical performance of the lncRNA panel was validated in clinical cohorts (T1, AUC = 0.812; T2, AUC = 0.805; T1 + T2, AUC = 0.764). Notably, the panel demonstrated significantly better performance compared with CT and traditional tumor markers.The novel 10-lncRNA could diagnose LN metastasis robustly in relatively early gastric cancer (T1-T2), with promising clinical potential.© 2023. The Author(s).