[Mass screening of gastric cancer--limits and prospects]

Now we have two methods for gastric cancer screening. One is radiological study and another is pepsinogen test. The efficacy of radiological study has been established by the curve of mortality rate of gastric cancer through these four decades. But it is problem for this study that the number of the participants has reduced and the patients who take the examination have been fixed. On the other hand, pepsinogen test is very easy and cheap to take the results. But the efficacy of this is not established, because this test started only twelve years before. According to our research, both tests have the pros and cons. So it is necessary to use both methods to do mass screening of gastric cancer. The capsule endoscopy, which was developed in these years, has held great possibility. It will be used practically near future.