Gastric carcinoma in the young: a clinicopathological and immunohistochemical study

Seventeen patients 40 yr of age and less with gastric carcinoma were studied retrospectively. Clinicopathological findings and survival data were collected on all patients. Immunohistochemistry for serotonin, gastrin, somatostatin, carcinoembryonic antigen, beta-human chorionic gonadotropin, and alpha-fetoprotein was performed and the results correlated with pathological and survival data. Patients were divided into two groups according to the presence or absence of endocrine markers in their tumors. The group with endocrine immunoreactivity tended to present with less advanced disease and had longer survival than the group without endocrine immunoreactivity (p less than 0.05). Although the number of patients in the study is too small to reach definite conclusions, our results are interesting in light of current knowledge of the pathobiology of gastric carcinoma and have important implications for future investigations.