Diagnosis and prevention of gastrointestinal malignancies

The consistently high mortality rates associated with gastrointestinal cancer result in large part from malignancies that progress undetected to an advanced stage of disease when treatment is usually less effective. In response to this fact, increasing attention has been directed toward developing methods of both primary and secondary prevention of malignancies. Advances in primary prevention have resulted in a better understanding of various etiologic factors in the environment that are related to carcinogenesis and how they can be corrected or eliminated. Advances in secondary prevention have improved efforts to identify and eradicate the premalignant stages of gastrointestinal cancer before lethal consequences can develop. Refinements in screening methods and improvements in diagnostic procedures, such as the introduction of endoscopic ultrasound, will allow physicians to detect gastrointestinal cancers and their premalignant forerunners at an earlier stage in an effort to render treatment strategies more effective.