[Study on endoscopic features in responders to systemic chemotherapy in advanced gastric cancer]

We studied the endoscopic features in 6 cases of advanced gastric cancer responded to chemotherapy. Patient characteristics were as follows. [table; see text] Age 43-77 (mean 63 years old) Endoscopic type Mean duration of PR was 26.6 weeks. The process of the improvement of primary lesion as judged by endoscopic findings were as follows. Firstly getting flat of wall, secondly reduction in size of ulcer, and lastly changing into scar. Number of reported cases including our case No. 6 which are diagnosed as scar endoscopically after chemotherapy and are operated successfully has been increasing. Most of them showed scar macroscopically with wide and irregular surface. Especially our case No. 6 showed keloidal scar. In these cases, the histological improvement into grade 2-3 was observed in scared tissue. Sooner or later, such a process of endoscopic improvement was observed 4-8 weeks after initiation of chemotherapy. Unless the endoscopic improvement was observed 8 weeks after initiation, regimen of chemotherapy should be changed into others.